Sitting of 15 November 1976

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
  Lords amendments considered and agreed to.

  TYNE AND WEAR BILL [Lords]
  Order for Third Reading read.
  [Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]
  Read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  PRICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION

    Retail Price Index
    Mr. Dodsworthasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what estimates he has made of the cost of the additional subsidies required to maintain the Retail Price Index at its present level in the event of the devaluation of the green pound to the level of the £ sterling.
    The Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection (Mr. Roy Hattersley): Depending on a number of complex factors, the green pound arrangements might represent a saving of as much as £1½ billion on retail prices, equivalent to about 10 per cent. on the retail food index. The Government
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    have made it clear that there is no immediate prospect of a devaluation of the green pound.
    Mr. Dodsworth: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the best contribution that he and his Department can make in terms of the retail price index is to restore confidence in the £ sterling and to make it clear that there will be a reduction in public spending by reducing the amount of money spent on food subsidies rather than by receiving over £1½ million a day through monetary compensatory payments?
    Mr. Hattersley: I have no doubt that the main obligation that have to consumers is to build an economy that is sufficiently stable and healthy to enable prices to be stabilised, and the £ sterling is part of the process. However, the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) oversimplifies the problems involved. I do not think that the major problem we shall face in the next six months or year involves the question of the extent of food subsidies.
    Mr. Powell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the greatest contribution the Government could make to real food prices being as low as possible would be to regain for this country the right to purchase food in world markets?
    Mr. Hattersley: No, I think the right hon. Gentleman is wrong. Within the figure that I quoted are almost £500 million worth of subsidies from the EEC. The green pound arrangement as it now is means that the EEC is subsidising the British consumer to a great extent. Were we to abandon that arrangement, the British consumer would suffer rather than benefit.

    Price Increases
    Mr. Rathboneasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what is the most recent year-on-year rate of inflation.
    Mr. Gowasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what is the latest year-on-year rate of increase in prices.
    Mr. Townsendasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection how much prices have increased since February 1974.
    Mr. Hattersley: The annual increase in the retail price index was 14·7 per cent. to October 1976. The increase since February 1974 was 60·8 per cent.
    Mr. Rathbone: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that reply comes unhappily from a Government who boasted that they would keep inflation down to 8·4 per cent. to gain electoral victory in October 1974, that it compares with a German inflation rate of 3·8 per cent., and that the country is appalled at a Government who inherited a 100p pound bringing about a situation in which it buys only 63p worth of clothing, food and everything else?
    Mr. Hattersley: I wish that we had inherited a 100p pound. I wish, too, that we had inherited a number of other things that would help us in our fight against inflation. Furthermore, I wish that we had inherited a public sector borrowing requirement which had not increased at the rate it did under the Tories in past years. What we inherited was an economy that was in greater imbalance than anything that happened since the war. As a result there was a substantial increase in prices in the early part of 1974, but between August last year and the present time there has been a substantial deceleration in the inflation rate. I have no doubt at all that after a period of stability that deceleration will continue. It will continue because of the success of the social contract. The Conservatives should decide whether they want to see that success and the social contract continue.
    Mr. Gow: Is the right hon. Gentleman not familiar with the letter of 18th December 1975 from the Chancellor of the Exchequer to Dr. Johannes Witteveen, in which the Chancellor said that by the end of this year the rate of increases in prices, year-on-year, would be under 10 per cent.? If the Secretary of State is familiar with that letter, will he say when the Chancellor's forecast will come about?
    Mr. Hattersley: There is a later Question on that subject, but in order that the Opposition may limit their hooting I shall answer it now, with apologies to the hon. Member who put down the later Question. We have not proceeded as quickly along this road as we had hoped.
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    I would not pretend anything else. There have been a number of difficulties. The depreciation of sterling is one and, more immediately, the drought has been another. The Opposition must decide whether they will support policies that will eventually result in the Government's aim being achieved or whether they regard their proper position as simply to cheer when things go wrong.

    Food Expenditure (Pensioners)
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what was the weekly amount spent on food by the pensioner in February 1974; and what it is at the present time.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection (Mr. Robert Maclennan): According to the National Food Survey, the food expenditure per person in pensioner households averaged £3·03 per week in the first quarter of 1974 and £4·63 in the second quarter of 1976, which is the latest period for which information is available. This represents an increase in expenditure of 53 per cent., but it should be borne in mind that over this period pensions increased by 70 per cent. Pensions will rise by a further 15 per cent. today.
    Mr. Montgomery: Is the Minister aware that, according to figures taken from the Family Expenditure Survey, the total expenditure for retired households has increased by £11·51 a week since February 1974? Is it not a terrible indictment of the Government that the rate of inflation has increased so much that is has eroded the increase in pensions since that date? Is he aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in a speech in Gloucester on 16th October that Socialism is an expensive business? Does he not agree that it is particularly expensive for retired people and low-income families, and that it is about time we had less Socialism?
    Mr. Maclennan: Is is unfortunate that the hon. Gentleman seeks to peddle rubbish in the House. The figures that I gave relating to expenditure on food show that the resources of pensioners, far from being eroded, have been more than maintained. [HON. MEMBERS: "Tell that to the pensioners."] Let hon. Members on

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    the Opposition Benches tell it to the pensioners, instead of peddling the nonsense that they perpetrate here. It is clear from the National Expenditure Survey that the resources of pensioners have increased faster than the increase in the cost of living. The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery) referred to expenditure on non-food items, but the figures also bear out my point in that area.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: As it was part of the implied agreement in the alleged social contract that food prices would be kept to a reasonable level, and as this part of the agreement has been broken, what prospects does the hon. Gentleman see for the continuance of the social contract?
    Mr. Maclennan: I am confident that the social contract will be maintained by the Government's pursuing the policies on which they embarked, with the full support of the working people, and by the people's understanding of what has led to price increases. We have a programme of food subsidies totalling £408 million in the current financial year, which has made a substantial contribution to restraining the level of price increases for the most sensitive items in the price index.
    Mr. Madden: Will my lion. Friend confirm that on this issue, as on so many others, the Opposition are two-faced hypocrites?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I have said before that arguments may be hypocritical, but that we never call anyone in this House a hypocrite.
    Mr. Madden: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Opposition, while pretending to be concerned about pensioners, are, by clamouring for the removal of food subsidies, doing, at a stroke, the worst conceivable damage to pensioners?
    Mr. Maclennan: I regret that the Opposition never lose an opportunity of shedding crocodile tears in the House.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the figures quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Montgomery) are an appallingly vivid illustration of
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    the dramatic fall in the value of money under this Government? Will he confirm that the amount spent on food by the average family has increased by almost £6 a week since February 1974, and is it not clear that the Government's policy of subsidies and trying to insulate the movement of food prices from the movement of other prices has been as pointless as it has been self-defeating?
    Mr. Maclennan: I hope it is clear to the hon. Gentleman that the Index of Retail Prices has increased by 61 per cent. since February 1974 while retirement pensions have increased by 96 per cent. during the same period.
    Mr. Montgomery: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the disgraceful reply that I have received, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Speaker: There is a set formula for this procedure. It begins "In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply".
    Mr. Montgomery: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply to my Question, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

    Consumer Credit Act 1974
    Mr David Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection whether he will issue a more simple guide to the regulations made under the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
    The Minster of State, Department of Prices and Consumer Protection (Mr. John Fraser): Section 4 of the Consumer Credit Act places on the Director General of Fair Trading the responsibility of publishing information and advice about the Act. I am therefore asking the Director General to write to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Mitchell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that small business men find these regulations so complex that senior civil servants have been attending courses—costing £50 each—to explain them? Will he arrange for the publication of a simple explanation of these regulations at a low cost which small business men can understand and afford to obtain?
    Mr. Fraser: Every time that I hear the hon. Gentleman asking a question, I feel that he underrates the intelligence of small business men. The Director General has published a series of leaflets about the Consumer Credit Act, which vary in complexity to suit a range of audiences. I am sure that he will do his best to make the Act clear and well understood to both small and large traders.
    Mr. Anthony Grant: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many small firms have had to take quite expensive legal advice to find out what the regulations mean and whether they should register under the Act? In view of the appalling burden on small firms, particularly because of the current minimum lending rate, do the Government not feel an obligation to minimise the administrative work of these firms?
    Mr. Fraser: There is a need to minimise the administrative work of small traders and others. I have looked at the licensing arrangements, and two forms that it was proposed that applicants should complete have now been dispensed with. I shall keep in mind the need to make these matters as clear as possible. Further regulations have to be made affecting particularly small traders doing credit transactions.

    Railway Buffet Cars
    Mr. Beithasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection whether he is satisfied that adequate arrangements exist for enforcing consumer protection legislation in the buffet cars of trains.
    Mr. John Fraser: I have no evidence that existing arrangements are inadequate.
    Mr. Beith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that British Rail is attempting to serve a synthetic substitute for tea on its trains, that many local authority trading standards officers are worried about it and that some wish to ensure that it is not described as tea? How can enforcement take place when a train spends so little time in each local authority's area? Does the Minister assume that officers must get on and off trains even when they do not stop?
    Mr. Fraser: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman imbibed in Newcastle, but I believe that the matter is being investigated. Investigations by trading standards officers take place at the points of departure and arrival, and travellers also have recourse to the Transport Users' Consultative Council.
    Mr. Rost: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the price and quality of British Rail tea is irrelevant, as most people can no longer afford to travel by rail?
    Mr. Fraser: I do not find that to be the case, and it is about time that the music hall jokes about British Rail came to an end.
    Mr. Whitehead: If my hon. Friend has discussions with British Rail about the price of tea and aspects of service in buffet cars, will he draw attention to the fact that the cars are occasionally advertised as being open when they are either closed OT open only to a selected section of the community, so that not even tea can be purchased by the majority of travellers?
    Mr. Fraser: If there are complaints about the lack of services, I am certainly prepared to look further at the matter.

    Food Prices
    Mr. Adleyasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what is the relationship between devaluation of the £ sterling and the increase in the cost of imported foodstuffs.
    Mr. Newtonasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what is his estimate of the increase in retail food prices since the end of February 1974 which is attributable to the decline in the external value of the £ sterling.
    Mr. Hattersley: A fall in the value of sterling of 10 per cent. is estimated to cause an increase in the Retail Price Index of very roughly 2½ per cent. in the following year. The effect on food prices alone is complicated by the green currency arrangements, which help to shield the United Kingdom consumer from the full effects for many major foodstuffs. Assuming that the value of the green pound is not changed, the effect on food prices is less than on prices in general.

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    It is not possible to distinguish the effects of the decline in the exchange rate from the numerous other interacting factors over a period stretching as far back as February 1974.
    Mr. Adley: As from the date they came to office, the Government have achieved an effective devaluation of our currency of well over 30 per cent.—in excess of the figure even of Sir Stafford Cripps and his successor as Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer—does the Secretary of State suggest that this is the fault of the British people for never learning from their mistakes about Socialist Governments or the fault of the rest of the world for having so little confidence in Her Majesty's Government?
    Mr. Hattersley: The fall that has occurred over the last two and a half years does not, in fact, beat the record of Sir Stafford Cripps. It just beats the record of Lord Barber—[Interruption.]—and it is deeply related to the other inheritances, as the hon. Gentleman chooses to particularise, that we acquired from Lord Barber and the Conservative Government of which he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    If the hon. Gentleman is seriously asking for the causes of our economic difficulties, I believe that they are twofold. One is deep-seated—the failure of British industry sufficiently to capitalise itself over the last 30 years. The other is more recent. It is the way in which the Conservative Government, which the hon. Gentleman supported, either inside or outside this House, between 1970 and 1974, chose electoral advantage rather than the real invigoration of the economy.
    Mr. Heffer: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Opposition have remarkably short memories and that the fall of the pound began once it was floated, under the previous Conservative Government? Is not one of the most serious and basic reasons the fact that since we have been in the Common Market, every year we have been faced with an increase of prices due to the tariff problem? Is it not clear that that also should be laid at the feet of the Opposition?
    Mr. Hattersley: As my hon. Friend knows, we disagree over his second point, but on the first point I think there can be no disagreement. I remember very
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    well the debate in this House when my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Jenkins) referred to the creeping devaluation that happened during the previous Administration. He said that the fact that Lord Barber had been—I think I quote him exactly—a dainty devaluer did not mean that he had not been a devaluer; it had happened continually.
    Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: As he has made a misleading statement, will the Secretary of State now tell the House what was the depreciation in the external purchasing power of the pound under the last Conservative Government, and what it has been under this Government?
    Mr. Hattersley: I have not made a misleading statement. Very much of the previous Government's policy was devoted to this end, which is why one of the hon. Lady's colleagues on the Front Bench was crying that we welcome what had happened. She seemed to be disagreeing that it happened, and her colleague is crying that we welcome it.
    Mr. Adley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I realise that you can hardly be held responsible for the content of ministerial replies, but the Minister has grossly misrepresented—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It would not be the first time, if it were true.

    Family Expenditure (Mortgage and Interest Rates)
    Mr. Peter Bottomleyasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection to what extent average family expenditure has increased as a result of the increase of interest rates and mortgage rates in the last six months.
    Mr. Maclennan: Despite the increase in minimum lending rate since May, mortgage and hire purchase interest rates have held generally steady. Over the past six months, therefore, interest rates have had no significant impact on family expenditure.
    Mr. Bottomley: I thank the Minister for that reply. I now draw his attention to the next six months and ask him if he will tell the House whether the increase of interest rates, mortgage rates and rents are part of the social contract as promised by the Labour Party in

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    November 1970, or whether Socialist planning does not include the real world.
    Mr. Maclennan: It is obviously too early to assess the effect on family expenditure of the recent increase in mortgage rates, but the steadying of house prices over the last two years has reduced significantly the rate of increase in net monthly payments. Conservative Members would do well to recall the comparison with the period when they were in office, between the first quarter of 1972 and the fourth quarter of 1973, when net monthly repayments more than doubled.
    Mr. Whitehead: Will my hon. Friend accept that the greatest protection for the householder in this period has been the end of random land speculation that went on under the last Government, and that this has enabled house prices to be stabilised? Will he, nevertheless, bear in mind that, as there will be an additional burden on mortgage repayments in the coming months, we ought to look again at the question of a stabilisation fund for the mortgage companies, which we discussed in very great detail at the time of the last election?
    Mr. Maclennan: The latter point is for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. However, it is true that the latest available figures show that the deceleration in the rate of house prices, which started when the Government took office, has continued, and this is encouraging.
    Mr. McCrindle: Looking at the other side of the mortgage coin, does the Minister agree that if investors in building societies were to receive a return on their money equivalent to the fall in the value of money, the mortgage rate to borrowers would have to be considerably higher than it is? Is any sort of consumer protection being considered for investors in building societies?
    Mr. Maclennan: I shall consider that question very carefully.

    Price Code (Excess Prices Orders)
    Mr. Giles Shawasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection how many orders have been made by the Price Commission with regard to excess prices since the Price Code commenced.
    Mr. Macfarlaneasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection how many orders have been made by the Price Commission with regard to excess prices since the Price Code commenced.
    Mr. Maclennan: The Commission has issued nine notices under Section 6 of the Counter-Inflation Act requiring firms to restrict prices or charges in order to conform with the Price Code. In the 12-month period up to last August the Commission also secured about 3,000 price reductions worth about £80 million, and over 1,000 price increase notifications were rejected, modified or withdrawn.
    Mr. Shaw: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he and his right hon. Friend take note of the massive degree of voluntary co-operation which British industry has undergone in the application of the code? Will he note also that only nine actions were enforced, whereas about 22,000 companies are involved in the operation of the code? Will the Minister encourage his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to pay proper and due tribute to the way in which British management is coping with this ever-increasing burden?
    Mr. Maclennan: I believe that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already done so—when he met the CBI earlier this year.
    I pay full tribute myself, together with my colleagues in the Department, to the co-operation of industry in the implementation of the provisions of the Price Code. Industry has played a notable part in helping to restrain rates of inflation in this country. I hope that Conservative Members, who are so ready to criticise the operations of the Price Code, will accept that just as much as I do.
    Mr. Henderson: Does the Minister recall a scheme called Price Check, and will he tell us whether it has died or simply faded away?
    Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman is a number of months out of date. It has ended.

    Price Increases
    Mr. David Priceasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection by how much prices have increased in the United Kingdom since February 1974; and what have been the

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    average rates of increase in OECD countries since that date.
    Mr. Maclennan: By August 1976, the latest month for which comparable data are available, prices had risen by 55·9 per cent. in the United Kingdom and by an average of 27·8 per cent. in OECD countries.
    Mr. Price: May I, in the most kindly supplementary question that I can put, ask the Under-Secretary of State what have been the special factors in the United Kingdom which have led to our having twice the rate of price increases of the average of all our industrial competitors? I cannot put it in a nicer way than that.
    Mr. Maclennan: I shall endeavour to answer the question as nicely as I can, in both senses of the word. Part of the trouble stems from the wages free-for-all which took place when threshold payments awarded under stage 3 of the previous Government's pay policy were incorporated in basic rates. [Interruption.] Part of the trouble [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is interested in the answer, even if his colleagues below the Gangway are not. Part of the trouble arises from the need to phase out the deficits of the nationalised industries accumulated as a direct consequence of the policies of the Conservative Administration which the hon. Gentleman supported. Part has been due also to the higher food prices as a result of our transition to full EEC agricultural pricing—a policy with which his party is in full agreement.
    Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the difference between ourselves and our main competitors in relation to the annual rate of inflation has been made considerably worse by the fact that the three-monthly rate, annualised, is currently more than twice as high as it was last August? The figure now is 19 per cent. Will he ask his right hon. Friend to tell the House and the country, not just the TUC, when he and the Government will take adequate steps to stablise prices through the correct management of the economy? Is he aware that people are sick to death of the gimmicks that have come from his Department, which have cost a great deal of money and have done little or nothing to restrain prices?
    Mr. Maclennan: I hope that it is the common purpose of both sides of the House to acknowledge the steps that have been taken towards achieving this country's necessary targets of inflation which are comparable with those of our major international competitors. The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Oppenheim) does no service to the country by misrepresenting the position, as she has done this afternoon. The latest comparable figures show that our rate of inflation, at just over 60 per cent. above the average rate in the OECD, is high, and unacceptable. But it is a distinct improvement on the position six months earlier, when our inflation rate was 135 per cent. above the OECD average. We have achieved a marked improvement. We must ensure that that trend continues.
    Mr. Heffer: Why do the Government, and, for that matter, the Opposition Front Bench, refuse to accept that one of the basic reasons for the increase in food costs has been our entry into the Common Market, and the common agricultural policy?
    Mr. Maclennan: My hon. Friend may not have heard what I said on that point. I draw his attention to the value of the MCAs, which are helping to cushion this country against increases in food prices and which my right hon. Friend made clear will persist.

    Motor Vehicles (Cherished Number Plate)
    Mr. Rostasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection if he will, in the interests of the consumer, refer to the Director General of Fair Trading practices relating to the collection and transfer of cherished number plates.
    Mr. John Fraser: No, Sir. I am not satisfied that commercial activities in this field are likely to affect adversely the economic interests of consumers.
    Mr. Rost: Does the hon. Gentleman accept any responsibility for the estimated 27,000 consumers who have been suffering disgraceful delays in the renewal of their motor licences? Has this shabby Government's vendetta against people spending their own money got to the point where they are not prepared to take any action to protect this large group of consumers?
    Mr. Fraser: The matters to which the hon. Gentleman refers are primarily for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport. I understand that there has been some inconvenience to consumers as a result of action at Swansea One of the unions has now ceased industrial action and the other is expected to do so shortly.
    Mr. Adley: Will the Minister seriously consider referring to the Director General of Fair Trading the answer given by the Secretary of State about devaluation? Will he invite the Secretary of State to look up the value of the pound when it was floated in 1971 and see how it rose to 2 dollars 60 cents and where it was when this Government took office, and then have the good grace to apologise to the House for suggesting that the level of devaluation under Lord Barber was higher than that achieved by Sir Stafford Cripps?
    Mr. Fraser: I do not think that those are the cherished numbers that are the subject of the Question.
    Mr. Lipton: Will the Government do something to decherish these number plates? Can we not abolish them altogether and give people other numbers instead?
    Mr. Fraser: I am quite foxed by my hon. Friend. However, this is not a matter primarily for me.

    Price Increases
    Mr. MacGregorasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection when he now expects the annual rate of increase in the Retail Price Index to fall below 10 per cent.
    Mr. Hattersley: Due to a number of factors, including the depreciation of sterling and the drought, the current level of inflation is likely to persist for the next few months. I am not prepared to forecast beyond that.
    Mr. MacGregor: With the effects of the decline in sterling still to come through, higher mortgage rates coming up, much higher rates anticipated, higher fares and probably increased VAT, is it not clear that there is every likelihood that the rate of price increases in the next 12 months will be higher than in the past 12 months? Will the Secretary of State confirm that that will mean that
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    we shall continue to be in a worse posiiton than nearly every other Western country, by a long way, and will he now admit that the social contract, whose policies have produced this situation, is a total failure?
    Mr. Hattersley: No. I share the view of the Price Commission, which, in its most recent report—I am sure that I paraphrase it crudely—suggested that the level of retail prices would rise by about the same figure for some months, that it would then be reduced, and that the reduction would largely be the result of the second stage of the wages policy, which is inherent in the social contract. I have no doubt that the success that we have achieved to date and that we can anticipate is the direct result of the social contract. Those who are prepared to shout about it destroy the social contract at the country's peril, not their own.
    Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Is the Secretary of State aware that his reluctance and that of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor to make forward forecasts is understandable in the circumstances, because they have not got one right yet? Will he tell the House, with the benefit of hindsight, what the rate of inflation would have been over the past two and a half years if the social contract had been observed for the first 18 months, if the Government had not overspent and overborrowed, and if the pound had not depreciated by 25 per cent. as a result? Will he also tell us how much of the hardship and fall in living standards which are now inevitable could have been avoided?
    Mr. Hattersley: One of the main problems of the Labour Party losing by-elections is that Opposition Members get so excited that they never ask sensible questions—
    Mrs. Oppenheim: Answer.
    Mr. Hattersley: —but let me answer the hon. Lady. As she knows, it is impossible to hypothesise in that way. She must understand that the problems with which we had to wrestle included major items that we inherited from the previous Administration. I should like to give one example from the list offered to the House by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. One of our problems

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    over the public sector borrowing requirement has been that the Conservative Government refused to allow publicly-owned industries to move towards a situation in which they were self-supporting, but supported them out of deficits and therefore increased the borrowing requirement. It is that sort of problem with which we have wrestled and are now overcoming.

    Price Commission (Report)
    Mr. Sainsburyasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection if he will make a statement on the recent report of the Price Commission.
    Mr. Hattersley: I assume that the Question refers to the Price Commission's quarterly report for June-August, published on 26th October.
    The Commission reported that the rate of inflation was unlikely to fall from the present level for some months. It noted both favourable and unfavourable factors and referred to the beneficial effect of wage restraint in moderating the rate of price increases.
    Mr. Sainsbury: Is the Secretary of State aware that the relative strength of sterling this morning was attributed to the increased expectation that the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer were preparing to take effective action to reduce Government expenditure? In the light of his earlier replies explaining the effect that the fall in the value of sterling would have on the consumer, does he agree that he and his colleagues would best help the consumer if they helped the Chancellor of the Exchequer to get on with those long-delayed public expenditure cuts?
    Mr. Hattersley: I have no doubt that a major obligation on me and my Department, in terms of protecting the consumer, is to stabilise sterling. On the last occasion on which I answered Questions, I said five times—I have said it once already today, so I shall repeat it, in order that the hon. Gentleman's prepared supplementary question is properly answered—that there is nothing more important for the consumer than preventing further depreciation in sterling, which affects prices more than anything else. But I say to the hon. Gentleman, as I said to one of his hon. Friends, that to
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    assume that it is automatically achieved by public expenditure cuts is a severe over-simplification of the problem.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that he was elected on a manifesto that talked about subsidising basic foods, namely, bread, flour, butter, cheese, milk and tea. Will he tell the House where, in that same document, mention was made that those subsidies would be phased out within a year?
    Mr. Hattersley: We made it clear from the beginning that the object of the subsidies was to cushion the least well off against the difficulties that they would have to face in 1974 and 1975. The hon. Gentleman will recall, from an answer given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, that we have made substantial improvements in the standards of living of the least well off, the unemployed and the pensioners. Indeed, I understand that some of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends who complained bitterly about that at the weekend managed to achieve some notoriety on the front page of the Daily Express by saying that the increases were too great. As we have managed to improve the general purchasing power of the unemployed, the sick and the elderly, food subsidies do not have the importance that they had early in 1974.
    Mr. Marten: May I ask a sensible question on the subject of food prices? I hope that the Minister will be able to answer it. If the parity of the green pound is brought up when the transitional period is over, does he agree that the Common Market will have been responsible for a fairly substantial rise in food prices, including the 20 per cent. which is about to go on to imported lamb at the end of this year? What will the Government do to compensate the poorer sections of the community? The better off can manage the increase, although they do not like it, but it is the poorer sections that suffer most from the Common Market. What will the right hon. Gentleman do about this?
    Mr. Hattersley: If I may say so, that was a sensible question, but one that includes a hypothesis which I regard as highly unlikely. The common agricultural policy, about which the hon.

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    Gentleman rightly complains, contains a number of artificial elements which I regard as wholly disadvantageous to the consumer—the consumer in the United Kingdom and in the eight other EEC countries. The idea that we might allow the revaluation of the green pound before some other CAP adjustments are made which compensate the consumer is, to put it at its lowest, highly unlikely. Therefore, I do not believe that the hypothesis at the beginning of the hon. Gentleman's question will apply.

    Price Code
    Mr. Wakehamasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection whether he is satisfied with the Price Code in its present form.
    Mr. Hattersley: I am satisfied that the Price Code should remain in force until my present powers expire next July.
    Mr. Wakeham: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the recent relaxation of the Price Code was intended to allow some £1,000 million of additional profits in industry? Will he estimate by how much this has been reduced as a result of the increase in national insurance charges which distributors have to pay and which they are not allowed to recoup?
    Mr. Hattersley: The hon. Gentleman is wrong to say that recoupment—if that is the right word—is not applicable to distributors. There is some argument about the powers which make it possible for distributors to act in that way. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been explicit about that, and what he has said must apply.
    Mr. Heffer: Has the relaxation of the Price Code led to more investment, which was the argument used at the time? If it has not, what do the Government intend to do about it?
    Mr. Hattersley: It is impossible precisely to relate the relaxation of the Price Code to individual investment decisions. However, I have no doubt that, in our attempt—which must be extended—to encourage the proper climate for investment, the relaxation of the Price Code has played a substantial part. If my hon. Friend looks at the surveys by the Department of Industry and the CBI, he will see that investment prospects for next year are considerably improved, and
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    I hope and believe that the changes in the Price Code have made a contribution to that.

    Government Fees and Charges
    Mr. Ridleyasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection if he will refer all increases in Government fees in future to the Price Commission, irrespective of whether or not the increase is consistent with the general rules on Government fees and charges.
    Mr. John Fraser: Many Government fees and charges are subject to statutory consultation procedures and to parliamentary scrutiny, and it is not appropriate for them to be considered also by the Price Commission since they are set at a level to do no more than cover costs.
    Mr. Ridley: Is the Minister aware, however, that in, for example, the recent firearms fees orders the costs have escalated dreadfully? No private sector firm would be allowed to get away with that without its being looked into. Why does not the Minister get the Price Commission to investigate the fat bureaucrats who are living on shooters' and other firearms use fees being paid under those orders?
    Mr. Fraser: I do not accept the premise in that question. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out in a debate in Standing Committee, if the fees had not been increased there would simply have been a consequential increase in public expenditure.
    Mr. David Price: How does the Minister apply this principle to the Pay Code, when many employers would like to give their workpeople at least the minimum necessary to keep up their standard of living but the code does not allow them to give it? Why should the Government be allowed to make these charges to take care of inflation when no one else is allowed to do this?
    Mr. Fraser: The bases upon which fees are charged has been published to the House in an answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Warley, East (Mr. Faulds) on 5th April 1976. The basis of charging is analogous to the Price Code.
    Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the thoroughly unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek the earliest possible opportunity of raising the matter on the Adjournment.

    Television Rentals (Price Commission Report)
    Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection whether he will make a further statement on the television rentals report of the Price Commission.
    Mr. Maclennan: I have nothing to add to the answer which my right hon. Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Rodgers) on 15th October.
    Mr. Morris: Will the Minister recognise that that is a disappointing reply? Will he take this opportunity to point out that the rental companies are only being socially responsible in maintaining a profitable enterprise which ensures employment, and that by any yardstick a 19.4 per cent. return on capital employed is not excessive when the minimum lending rate is at 15 per cent.?
    Mr. Maclennan: I am grateful to those companies which have agreed to hold their prices until the end of the current phase of prices policy. From the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I am not clear whether he would be in favour of prices being frozen across the board.
    Mr. Tebbit: Does the Minister think that it is reasonable to expect companies to make a lower return on investment than the rate of inflation currently being experienced?
    Mr. Maclennan: The companies themselves have responded reasonably to a reasonable report.
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Morris: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the very unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek the earliest possible opportunity of raising the matter on the Adjournment.

    Food Prices
    Sir George Youngasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer
    922
    Protection how much food prices have increased since February 1974.
    Mr. Hattersley: The food index has risen by 67·8 per cent. between 19th February 1974 and 12th October 1976.
    Sir G. Young: Does the Secretary of State agree that lower-income families have been hit much worse proportionately by this increase than those who are better off? Would it not, therefore, be a better use of the public funds that are available if blanket food subsidies were removed and if part of the funds were directed more selectively to those in real need?
    Mr. Hattersley: I take the hon. Gentleman's point about the particular difficulties experienced by lower-income families. During the period in which food subsidies are to be run out—as the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced on 22nd July—I shall do my best to concentrate what remains on the foods which are particularly high in the budgets of lower-income families and to reduce it for the foods which are bought, in larger quantities, by families higher up the income scale.
    Mr. Jay: Does my right hon. Friend think that the additional import taxes and levies imposed on all the main foodstuffs as part of the common agricultural policy since 1972 have had the effect of raising or lowering food prices here?
    Mr. Hattersley: I have no doubt whatsoever that, taken overall, the advantage that we now get from green pound arrangements means that we are now in benefit. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh".] The problem to which my right hon. Friend refers is one that puts us at a disadvantage. However, as I have said to him on many previous occasions when answering from the Dispatch Box, he must look at the thing as a whole. On the whole, it is to our benefit to be in the Community and to enjoy the Community's food price regimes.

    Profit Margins
    Mr. McCrindleasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection on what criteria he refers profit margins to the Price Commission.
    Mr. Hattersley: References to the Price Commission are usually made in response

    923
    to public concern about prices or when traders have complained that margins are inadequate. But most references have been concerned with matters wider than profit margins.
    Mr. McCrindle: On the question of profit margins, does the right hon. Gentleman take into account the margins of profit in areas of activity comparable with that where a reference is sought? Does he take into account the possible effect on employment, or is it simply a question of some sort of presumed protection to the consumer by reducing prices?
    Mr. Hattersley: No. The things that are taken into account—in the terms in which the hon. Gentleman asked his question—are taken into account not by me but by the Price Commission, and they are taken into account according to the provisions of the Price Code, which the House debated and agreed without amendment about seven weeks ago. I take the hon. Gentleman's point that there are some problems associated with a Price Code the reference dates of which are historic and a code which is in many ways likely to stratify existing patterns of profit and economic performance. That is why, when I look to the future prices policy, I should like to find a rather more flexible policy than that which we have at present.
    Mr. John Garrett: Will my right hon. Friend refer to the Price Commission the retail margins made by multiple footwear retailers?
    Mr. Hattersley: In all these matters one must reconcile the problems associated with margins and prices with the necessity to preserve confidence in industry and, therefore, to preserve investment and employment. I have looked at the question to which my hon. Friend refers, and I do not believe that a good case could be made at present for making the reference which he suggests.
    Mr. Lawson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many foreign companies, particularly American ones, are being deterred from investing in Britain, or investing further in this country, by the existence of profit and dividend control? Is he further aware that if he were to relax those controls the investment to which I have referred would raise the
    924
    value of the pound and help the consumer far more than he will be helped by any of the measures about which the right hon. Gentleman has been talking?
    Mr. Hattersley: No, Sir, I am not aware of that, nor do I believe is anyone who examines the Price Code. Anyone who examines it objectively will agree that the Price Code is inhibiting investment and profit in only a marginal number of cases. In others, it is the level of activity within the economy that determines how companies operate and what they invest. The hon. Gentleman's question implies a situation which no sensible commentator would suggest exists.

  CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (ENGAGEMENTS)
  Mr. Gowasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster whether he will list his official engagements for 15th November 1976.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Privy Council Office (Mr. William Price): I have been asked to reply.
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster left over the weekend for the United States of America, where he has engagements with members of the Administration.
  Mr. Gow: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I received this afternoon an undated letter from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster saying that the junior Minister who would be answering Questions would not be conversant with his, the right hon. Gentleman's, engagements and would not be able to answer supplementary questions? Despite that, will the hon. Gentleman tell us what the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is doing in Washington, and whether he is trying to negotiate terms for the IMF loan? If the right hon. Gentleman is not doing that, does not the hon. Gentleman owe the House an explanation of what the Chancellor is doing in Washington?
  Mr. Price: My right hon. Friend is not negotiating in Washington. He is having discussions with a number of members of the American Administration, and I shall convey the hon. Gentleman's good wishes to him in that task.
  Mr. Rathbone: Will the hon. Gentleman convey to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, when he returns from whatever his mission may be, that his right hon. and hon. colleagues on the Government Front Bench deceived the House in leading the country to think that the rate of inflation was coming down, when in fact the figures up to September will be 57·9 per cent. for the United Kingdom, as against the OECD figure of 25·8 per cent.?
  Mr. Price: The hon. Gentleman should be a little less selective with his figures.

  INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (LOAN APPLICATION)
  Mr. Hooleyasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will personally take part in forthcoming negotiations with the IMF about the proposed loan to the United Kingdom.
  Mr. William Price: I have been asked to reply.
  My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has been keeping close touch with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the progress of the negotiations.
  Mr. Hooley: My right hon. Friend was courteous enough to inform me that ministerial duties in Washington would prevent him from answering Questions in person this afternoon, and I am grateful for that information.
  Will my hon. Friend pass on to our right hon. Friend the substance of my supplementary question, which is to ask what initiative he or the Government will he taking about the present chaos in the Eurocurrency markets and also about initiating discussions to move away from the disasters of floating exchange rates to a more fixed system?
  Mr. Price: I shall most certainly pass that supplementary question on to my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Ridley: Will the hon. Gentleman give the House an absolute assurance that his right hon. Friend is not trying to borrow still more money, apart from
  926
  what his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is trying to borrow?
  Mr. Price: The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster can answer for himself in this House, and will do so.
  Mr. Lawson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a man who feels that the solution to every problem is to borrow more, he would be doing far less damage if he were here answering Questions instead going round Washington with a begging bowl?
  Mr. Price: If I have to rely on the judgment of my right hon. Friend or that of the hon. Gentleman, I am in no doubt about where my loyalty in this matter lies.
  Mr. Whitelaw: Is the hon. Gentleman really entitled to treat the House of Commons in this disgraceful way? After all, his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is supposed to be answering Questions in this House. There may be good reasons why the right hon. Gentleman is in Washington, which we have not been told. Even if there are good reasons, they do not justify the hon. Gentleman's cavalier treatment of the House of Commons.
  Mr. Price: If I may say so, my answers were no more cavalier than were the questions. I thought I had made it absolutely clear that my right hon. Friend was in Washington talking to members of the Administration there. He is not negotiating; he is talking to them. He is informing them and having discussions with them. It goes no further than that.
  Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Gentleman said that he had been asked to reply on behalf of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. When I asked what the Chancellor was doing, the hon. Gentleman replied that his right hon. Friend could answer for himself on another occasion. The hon. Gentleman told me earlier that he was answering for his right hon. Friend. We cannot have both the hon. Gentleman answering for the Chancellor and the Chancellor answering for himself. This is surely an abuse of the question and answer procedure.
  Mr. Speaker: I am not responsible for ministerial replies.

  PRICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION

    Price Code
    Mr. Freudasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection when he expects to bring forward proposals for a new Price Code to operate after July 1977.
    Mr. Hattersley: I am at present considering the form that prices policy might take in the longer term. The possibilities are not confined to the introduction of a new Price Code. I intend to discuss future policy fully with interested parties before taking any final decisions.
    Mr. Freud: I am grateful for that reply. Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the crucial need for trade and industry to plan ahead, and afford them ample time before a new Price Code comes upon them?
    Mr. Hattersley: I understand that very well. I believe that they need stability and certainty, and I shall provide as much of that as I can during the discussions that I hope will open quite soon. I take the point.
    Mr. Giles Shaw: I have two quick questions to put to the right hon. Gentleman. First, in relation to the existing code, will he confirm that people are entitled to pass on the cost of the national insurance contribution? There is some doubt about that. Secondly, with regard to the negotiations on a subsequent code, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the CBI document "The Road to Recovery" and take note that it estimates that the average profit margin is no higher than 3 per cent. in industry as a whole? Does the right hon. Gentleman regard an adequate profit margin as the bastion of any new pricing policy?
    Mr. Hattersley: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's first question is clear. It was made clear by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, namely, that that must be allowable under the Price Code. There is no question about that.
    On the second point, I understand the need for profits to be sufficiently high to allow for proper levels of investment and thereby stimulate employment. What I hope a new prices policy can do is to encourage the making of those profits
    928
    that are used for that purpose. I hope that the argument about profits in this country in the future can be more concerned with the use to which profits are put than with the level at which profits happen to be at any one time.

    Consumer Prices
    Mr. Martenasked the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection what steps he is taking to keep down the price of consumer goods.
    Mr. Hattersley: Within the severe constraints imposed by the public sector borrowing requirement, the need to safeguard jobs and to promote investment and the pressure of increasing import costs, consumer prices are being contained when that is possible. The Price Commission saved consumers £138 million as a result of modifications, rejections and withdrawals of proposed price increases during the period 1st June to 31st August 1976.
    Mr. Marten: On the question of the price of food, may I refer to the answer that the Minister gave to my previous supplementary question and confirm that what he really means is that there will be no change in Government policy towards the green pound until there has been a substantial change in the CAP?
    Mr. Hattersley: From long experience, I normally prefer to give my answers in my words rather than the hon. Gentleman's. However, by and large his description of our policy is right. Clearly, from the United Kingdom consumer's point of view there are benefits to be gained from the green pound remaining at its present level. We could not possibly contemplate a change in that unless other aspects of the CAP were changed in such a way that equal benefits flowed to the British consumer.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: If it is possible for the right hon. Gentleman to estimate to within £1 million of the £138 million that has been saved by the Price Commission, is it equally possible for him to tell us what the cost of the Government has been on consumer prices overall during the past two and a half years?
    Mr. Hattersley: I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman regards that as a serious question. He has made his point, but the important point is made not by

    929
    him or by me but by the Price Commission. If the hon. Gentleman looks at its reports and adds up the amounts of saving, he will discover that the existence of the Commission, and the application of its policies, has saved the British consumer a great amount of money over the past two and a half years.

  QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
  Mr. Adley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. At the beginning of Question Time you made a statement to the effect that you would limit the calling of supplementary questions mainly to hon. Members with Questions on the Order Paper. Out of 30 Questions today to the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection there were three—Nos. 7, 19 and 30—put down by Members of the Labour Party, not one of whom, apparently, was present. Can you please tell us how you will find yourself able to organise yourself on the basis of your guiding statement and could you find out from the Prime Minister whether the Parliamentary Labour Party has given up supporting the Government?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's point of order gives me an opportunity to remind those hon. Members who were not here at the beginning of our proceedings that at Question Time, where a number of Questions are linked together, I intend to call the hon. Members asking those Questions before I call anyone else.
  Secondly, I ask hon. Members to read with care in Hansard tomorrow the sort of supplementary questions that they have asked today and the length of the answers that they have received. They will then discover that the art of asking direct questions seems to be leaving us.
  Mr. Heffer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I ask whether there is an intention of imposing any limits in respect of the number of Questions which can be linked together? There are hon. Members in this House who do not regularly put down a whole series of Questions but who assiduously attend this House at Question Time and who, from time to time, like myself, involve themselves in supplementary questions. On the basis of your statement, Mr. Speaker, it would appear that hon.
  930
  Members such as myself will from now on have to waste people's time in the Ministry by putting down a whole series of sometimes quite unnecessary Questions.
  Mr. Speaker: There is no question of unfairness. I am following the practice that has been followed all through my period in the House, except for the last few years, in which those whose Questions are being called have priority over everyone else. I believe that that is the general will of the House.
  Mr. Heffer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am afraid that you did not answer the point I made about the number of Questions which can be linked together.
  Mr. Speaker: Twice on recent occasions hon. Members have protested to me that we have not gone far enough in Question Time. I must take what steps are open to me, if it is the will of the House that we go further in Question Time, to ensure that those who have given notice of Questions have their Questions answered if they are reached. I cannot extend the same guarantee to those hon. Members who have not put Questions on the Order Paper.

DOCK WORK REGULATION BILL (AMENDMENTS)
3.33 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Albert Booth): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the Dock Work Regulation Bill.
This afternoon the decisions taken by this House in our debate on the Bill last week are being considered in another place. Additionally, the Government have put forward for consideration in another place further amendments.
These, if found acceptable, would substitute the concept of a definable dock area for that of a cargo-handling zone throughout the Bill, as decided in principle by this House. They would ensure that a new Dock Labour Scheme would be applied to all work to which the 1967 Scheme is now applied, whether or not located in a definable dock area. They would provide that objections to a proposal to extend any particular definable dock area would be subject to public inquiry and that any subsequent order for

931
such an extension would be laid in draft before Parliament and would need to be approved by a resolution of each House.
I believe that these amendments would provide a sensible and workable measure which I would want to commend to this House.
If these amendments are found acceptable in another place, and no other amendments are insisted on, on behalf of the Government I assure the House that we would not seek to introduce the Bill as it was approved by the Commons on Third Reading with a view to enacting it under the Parliament Act.
Mr. Prior: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we welcome the Government's acceptance of the clear will of the House of Commons as expressed last Wednesday? We welcome the fact that the five-mile corridor—the so-called dockers' corridor—is dead. We consider this to be a victory for common sense and it will be of relief to hon. Members in all parts of the House.
Would the Secretary of State clarify the definition of a dock area in order to make certain that it is not a continuous corridor but restricted to an area only half a mile around each harbour? Secondly, if the National Dock Labour Board seeks to extend any area, will each area and each extension be looked at separately and subject to the public inquiry and affirmative resolution procedures that the right hon. Gentleman has announced? Does that mean that blanket power to extend without public inquiry has been withdrawn?
Are the right hon. Gentleman and the House aware that of the many vital issues long debated, two of the most important issues—the withdrawal of the corridor and the inclusion of a public inquiry procedure for any extension—will now stand part of the Bill and will not be amended?
Mr. Booth: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's final point, I cannot give undertakings about what the House will do. It will be for this House to consider what amendments should be made. If these amendments which are tabled in the other place are returned to this House, I can and will undertake that the Government will support these and no other amendments to the Bill.
932
With regard to the definition of the dock area, a definable dock area as decided by this House is a less precise term than that of a cargo-handling zone, but that was the decision of the House. I would make absolutely clear that the procedure which is proposed under the amendments for a public inquiry into any extension would ensure that any definable dock area, or any single geographical area of a harbour, would be considered separately. They would be considered one at a time. There would be no question of a block order covering a large group of areas. It is intended to work in that way.
Mr. Donald Stewart: While welcoming the right hon. Gentleman's statement, I regret that he will not accept any further amendments. Can the Secretary of State give further consideration to naming the small ports which will be exempted in the Bill?
Mr. Booth: I am guided by the decisions that this House took last week. The House decided to reject the proposal to consider small ports in a separate way, and I shall be guided by that.
Mr. Kinnock: Is my right hon. Friend aware that on this side of the House we are inclined to accept his wisdom and the consultations which seem to have gone on in the last few days to draw up this conclusion as a result of the consequences of last Thursday night? However, worries remain. We welcome my right hon. Friend's assurance that those bodies, including this House and the other place, which will continue to have an ongoing responsibility for these affairs will not be able to exercise and tender judgment which would prohibit the effective working of the scheme as laid out in the Bill.
Mr. Booth: Yes, I think I can assure my hon. Friend in that way. The amendments which have been tabled reflect, first, the judgment and decision of this House and, secondly, a clear understanding between Government and Opposition as to what is required to make an effective working measure of the Bill. They also take into account the declared intention of both Government and Opposition that it was no part of their purpose in passing this legislation to prevent a new scheme from working in all those areas which are covered by the 1967 Scheme.
Mr. Beith: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that, however much he may dislike a decision of this House, it is right that the House should review and at times change Government legislation? What remaining principal merit does he see in the Bill which has led him not to drop it altogether?
Mr. Booth: A considerable merit that I see in the Bill if these amendments are passed is that it will enable a far more flexible method to be used of determining what is classifiable dock work, a method which I think will work much better in modern terms than does the present scheme. It will also enable the National Dock Labour Board to contain representatives of a wider range of people with interests in dock work than does the current Dock Board. Those are two benefits well worth having in the scheme.
To have dropped the Bill altogether would have been an irresponsible response by the Government to a decision of the House. I have never taken the position that the Government should not accept fully decisions of this House. This House did not decide to get rid of the Bill. It decided to change the concept of cargo-handling zone for that of definable dock area and I shall work as effectively as I can to secure the decision of this House.
Mr. McNamara: The House will welcome what the Secretary of State has just said, that he will work to ensure the decision of this House. But will he seek to persuade the House to change its mind in its next Session and get back to where we were—the original agreement on which the Government were elected and the undertaking to the dock workers' union?
Mr. Booth: I am certainly not committing the Government today not to introduce amending legislation in any future Session. Obviously a Government will have to be able to consider their position on future legislation, but that is not what we are discussing today.
Mr. David Price: As a member of the Standing Committee which spent 36 sit, tings considering the Bill, may I welcome the Government's decision, which is sensible in the circumstances? May I also put it to the right hon. Gentleman that
934
the hard-core problem which we discussed in Committee which gave cause for the Bill was the problem of the rundown of London docks and that we thought that that problem was much wider than the dock problem specifically? There has been delay in the refurbishing of the East End of London. Would the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the Leader of the House that we have a Select Committee to look into this problem, which is much wider than that of the docks and remains after his announcement today?
Mr. Booth: First, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome for my proposal. The question of a Select Committee to look into the particular problems of London is one that I shall have to refer to the Leader of the House. However, the Bill as amended can serve the interests of the dock industry in many areas of this country. The Bill is not required solely for the problem of London, which I admit is considerable.
Mr. Bidwell: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating and that whether we have a Labour Government or a Conservative Government, they will have to address their mind earnestly to the problems of dock workers, whose labour and spirit are vital to our economic future? If we take that approach, we shall probably get it right.
Mr. Booth: I agree very much with my hon. Friend. The problems of dockland do not come or go away because the country changes its Government. I hope that I may be allowed to say that one of the factors which may have brought about the measure of understanding which now exists is the realisation by many hon. Members that there is a need for effective modern legislation in this area.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: Have these welcome compromises also been welcomed by the Transport and General Workers Union and the other unions involved? Is this welcome spirit of compromise by the Government likely to extend to other Bills which we shall shortly be considering, such as the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill and the Health Services Bill?
Mr. Booth: I have no guarantee that these changes will be welcomed by all

935
the unions involved. I acted on a decition of this House and not a decision of any one union or any group of unions. I shall certainly do my best to advise the unions concerned to co-operate to the hilt with the decision of the House.
Mr. Leadbitter: My right hon. Friend is rightly responding to the decision of the House in the past few days, but I hope that he will understand that this is not an inflexible situation, that the House would be far wiser to be prudent and to accept that there will be a fluid situation and that there will have to be consultations, particularly on this side, with the trade union movement. Would he bear in mind the fact—although he has tried to do his best in the circumstances—that some of us are a little alarmed? This is a highly sensitive area. There has been close consultation with the unions and with the port employers and we are somewhat dismayed—I hope that he can explain the position—about what has happened on a matter on which a firm opinion was expressed from the Front Bench about the principle of public inquiries. Would he assure us that the principle of a public inquiry which is now introduced will not inhibit future discussions on these matters?
Mr. Booth: First, the long consultations which have been held with employers and unions were taken into account by the Government in judging the acceptability of, and forming a view on, the legislation.
The public inquiry which was debated last week was any inquiry before a new national scheme was confirmed. The House rejected that idea. The inquiry to which I have referred today would be one before the geographical area of any definable dock area was extended. That is a different matter which I would commend to the House on the grounds that "definable dock area" is not so precise a concept as was the cargo-handling zone and that a public inquiry into the area where there were objections would serve a useful function.
Mr. Lawson: In answer to a question from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), the Secretary of State was a little evasive and imprecise. Can he confirm that the Gov-
936
ernment have no intention of introducing an amending Bill to restore the five-mile corridor in the next Session of Parliament?
Mr. Booth: I hope that I can now make it clear that I am being neither evasive nor imprecise. The answer to the hon. Member's question is "No".
Mr. Rathbone: Could the right hon. Gentleman explain in rather more detail how his announcement is a compromise? Does it not reflect the decisions of the House last week? Why should he feel that his Government should therefore take it upon themselves to refuse in advance amendments which may be made in another place and which may reflect the interests of many hon. Members' constituents, including all of mine?
Mr. Booth: The word "compromise" is that of the hon. Member. It is not my word. I did not say that it was a compromise. I said that these were proposals which I believed would make the Bill workable, and I think that I am justified in saying that that is the wish of the House. If other amendments are made to the Bill in another place, it will be a matter for this House to determine, but I have made it clear that if the amendments now proposed, and no other, are put to us in this House as a result of the deliberations which take place in another place today, I shall advocate the support of those amendments and the rejection of any others which would change the Bill's nature further.
Mr. Heffer: Since my right hon. Friend now has the assured support of all hon. Members on this side to make this a workable piece of legislation, would he not agree that it will not solve the long-term problems of the dock industry? Will he not at some future date come down to having to carry out Labour's proposals for the public ownership of the docks?
Mr. Booth: The Dock Work Regulation Bill was never intended by the Government to deal with the question to which public ownership of the dock industry is addressed. That is a separate proposal. It is a proposal which I supported when it was first introduced and which I shall be happy to support in the future.
Mr. Aitken: Is the Secretary of State aware that there will be great relief in many parts of the country, and indeed in many non-docker trade unions, at the way in which he has bowed to the inevitable and gracefully surrendered this afternoon? Is he aware also that this relief will be tempered by some anxiety by the equivocal answer he gave to his hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara)? Will he not now once again bow to the inevitable and, even if he will not give an assurance, for which my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) asked him, at least admit that, owing to the devolution legislation log jam in the next Session, there is no prospect of the dockers' corridor being introduced again?
Mr. Booth: I certainly was not being equivocal in my answer. I made it absolutely clear that I am giving no assurance whatsoever from this Dispatch Box today that amending legislation will not be introduced by a Government in the future. I certainly accept the implications of what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the time available for legislation next Session. I think that would make it difficult for any of my colleagues or myself to claim additional time to introduce legislation.
Mr. Kelley: Will my right hon. Friend take note, and advise his colleagues who are not present, that most of the welcoming statements that he has received and the eulogies that have been poured upon him have come from the other side and not from his colleagues behind him?
Mr. Booth: Yes. That is something which gives me the gravest cause for concern.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that there are many other industries with problems of employment either in terms of working conditions or in terms of declining industries, as in newspaper printing and steel, and that it is impossible to solve the problems of these industries by legislation such as the Dock Work Regulation Bill before it was amended? Will he bear that in mind and institute consultations across the parties about what is the best approach to put these problems right and also recognise that when he gave his equivocal answer about reintroducing
938
amending legislation next year there were not great cries from his side of the House insisting on having such a measure?
Mr. Booth: I certainly accept that there are problems in many industries which do not lend themselves to solution by decasualisation legislation. That is almost self-evident. As far as we can, when we deal with problems by legislation or by policy or by administrative changes we try to carry people with us in doing so, and that involves discussions with representatives of other parties.

ROYAL ASSENT
Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts and a Measure:

1. Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976

2. Supplementary Benefit (Amendment) Act 1976

3. Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976

4. International Carriage of Perishable Foodstuffs Act 1976

5. National Health Service (Vocational Training) Act 1976

6. Insolvency Act 1976

7. Electricity (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1976

8. Motor-Cycle Crash-Helmets (Religious Exemption) Act 1976

9. Bail Act 1976

10. Valuation and Rating (Exempted Classes) (Scotland) Act 1976

11. Retirement of Teachers (Scotland) Act 1976

12. Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976

13. Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 1976

14. New Towns (Amendment) Act 1976

15. Companies Act 1976

16. Land Drainage Act 1976

17. Supplementary Benefits Act 1976

18. Royal County of Berkshire (Public Entertainment) Provisional Order Confirmation Act 1976

19. East Kilbride District Council Order Confirmation Act 1976

939

20. Cromarty Harbour Order Confirmation Act 1976

21. Tees Tunnel Act 1976

22. County of South Glamorgan Act 1976

And to the following measure, passed under the provisions of the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919:
1. Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 1976 (No. 1)

CHURCH OF ENGLAND (ENDOW MENTS AND GLEBE MEASURE)
3.54 p.m.
Mr. Terry Walker: I beg to move,
That the Endowments and Glebe Measure, passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.
This Measure represents a further step in the process of deploying the historic endowments of Church of England more fairly and effectively and in managing them more efficiently. The Measure is in fact in two main parts and I shall try to deal with these as I go through them.
The first 14 clauses contain provisions about the future application of income from the historic endowments of the Church of England, including income from glebe. The second part of the Measure contains provisions relating to the future ownership and management of glebe lands.
The Church's historic endowments are capital assets the income from which is used for the most part, and can be used only, to provide for the stipends, pensions and houses of the clergy of the Church of England. The annual income from these assets is certainly substantial, but, large though that income is, it is now not by any means enough to meet the whole stipends bill. One-third of a clergyman's stipend now comes on average from current lay giving and as time goes on the proportion which the laity have to provide is likely to increase. This being so, I do not need to stress to the house how important it is that the assets of the Church, including glebe, should be managed efficiently and the income from them distributed fairly; and this is where this Measure comes in.
Historically each bishopric, each cathedral chapter and each benefice had an endowment, usually in the form of a landed estate or right to tithes. Where the incumbent of a parish—the rector or a vicar—owned land to provide his stipend or part of it, this was and still is known as glebe land.
In the course of the nineteenth century, many of the historic endowments of the Church, notably the endowments of the bishops, cathedral chapters and that part

941
of the endowments of benefices which had been turned from lands into other forms of investment, were transferred by Act of Parliament into the ownership of what were then the Ecclesiastical Commissioners what are now, of course, the Church Commissioners. This was done in the interests of the better management of assets and fairer distribution of the incomes from them.
All these were local endowments in the sense that they were originally provided to support a particular ministry in a particular place, whether it was to provide for the ministry of a bishop or a dean and chapter in Bristol or to provide for a parson in a church like St. Mary Redcliffe at Bristol, but over the years successive Measures and Acts have produced a situation in which bishops, deans and canons are no longer separately endowed. Instead, they receive personal stipends drawn from the central pooled fund of the Commissioners. These are periodically adjusted to take account of changing circumstances.
In the case of incumbents—rectors and vicars—the Benefices (Stabilisation of Incomes) Measure 1951 pooled those endowments held by the Church Commissioners separately for particular benefices in return for fixed annual payments. Any subsequent growth in income from these endowments is now available for the benefit of the clergy generally, to be allocated and used where it is most needed.
Through all this, glebe has remained in the incumbent's possession so that incumbents who own glebe are the only clergymen nowadays who directly control the assets from which they are paid, or partly paid. It is as well for the House to know that only 7 per cent. of the clergymen of the Church of England today receive the whole of their stipend from the endowment income of the parish which they serve. For the remaining 93 per cent. the stipend already has to be subsidised from the general funds of the Church Commissioners and from current lay giving.
I have tried to describe a process which has existed for about 140 to 150 years, with each development approved by Parliament. It is arguable that the logical next step would be to go towards the complete pooling of all benefices' endow-
942
ments, including glebe, just as bishops' and cathedral endowments have been pooled. But the Measure stops short of that. It provides that in all benefices the present incumbent or sitting tenant will have a statutory entitlement to receive annually, as part of his stipend, a sum equal to the net endowment income, including any income from glebe, which he was receiving on the appointed day. Looking beyond the present holder of the office, the Measure provides that the incumbent will still have, as one element in his remuneration, a guaranteed annuity equal to the endowment income, including glebe income, which he was receiving on the appointed day, but subject to a ceiling of £1,000 a year.
Clause 1 provides for the payment as from the appointed day of a guaranteed annuity which in no case exceeds £1,000 per annum. Clause 2 provides that for the sitting tenant this will be augmented by a personal grant to bring him up to the amount which he received before. This provision for a guaranteed annuity as a permanent, continuing element in the payment of a rector or vicar will be a tangible reminder of the past provision for the holder of his particular office. The ceiling was fixed at £1,000 so that in 80 per cent. of the cases the guaranteed annuity would be the same as the present endowment income, including glebe income.
Thanks to previous legislation, the process of redistribution has gone so far that the amount of endowment income which will be released by the new Measure as present incumbents retire and the personal grants terminate will not be great. The sum involved will be just over £1 million compared with the existing payments of endowment income of about £8 million. But it is important as a contribution to a more flexible and fairer system of remuneration for the clergy in the parishes.
I turn to the main part of the Measure—Clauses 15 to 28 which deal with the ownership and management of glebe land. First, the Church wishes to be able to treat income from glebe in the same way as other income from endowments. Secondly, glebe land is increasingly important and needs to be efficiently managed with rents regularly and properly reviewed, and kept up to date. Only in that way will glebe make an adequate contribution to the stipends of

943
the clergy. The Measure accordingly provides that glebe land will be transferred on the appointed day not into central hands but into the hands of the local diocese to be held as "diocesan glebe land" for the benefit of the diocesan stipends fund.
Some glebe is well managed but our attention has been drawn to many cases where it is not well managed. There are cases where land is being lost to the Church and where rents have remained at an absurdly low level or have gone uncollected. Moreover, while some clergy like managing or farming their own glebe, many would gladly be rid of their responsibilities. Many others, particularly younger men, would prefer to receive their stipend on a regular monthly basis instead of having to wait until rents come in quarterly, half-yearly or annually. The Measure effectively makes mandatory and permanent a system of diocesan control and management which is already operated voluntarily and successfully in seven of the 43 dioceses of the Church of England.
Hon. Members sometimes complain to me because they feel that the devolution of power under the enabling Act of 1919 from Parliament to the Church Assembly and now to the General Synod gives Parliament too little opportunity to examine Church Measures. They are inclined to overlook the opportunities given under the 1919 Act to the Ecclesiastical Committee. I am happy to say, as the Committee's report shows, that it recognised from correspondence that the Measure was in some respects controversial and took its responsibilities seriously, meeting on three separate occasions and examining, as is customary, the official witnesses of the General Synod and obtaining much additional factual evidence of the Measure and its likely effects.
In the end the Committee was not unanimous, but a substantial majority was in favour of the finding that the Measure was expedient. I do not intend to go over the ground covered by the Ecclesiastical Committee because I know that many hon. Members want to contribute to the debate. For that reason I am pleased that the debate has come on at a reasonable hour and hon. Members will be able to argue their cases.
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I shall comment briefly on five of the main criticisms of the Measure which have been considered by the Ecclesiastical Committee and which had been made to hon. Members in correspondence. I come first to publicity and consultation. It has been suggested that the General Synod somehow rushed the Measure through without adequate preparation and consultation. But the period of gestation for the Measure goes back to 1967, before the creation of the General Synod, to the publication of the report "Partners in Ministry", which proposed a package deal of new terms and conditions of employment and remuneration for the clergy.
At the time the report was generally felt to be too radical for the Church, particularly for the clergy. Following it, the clergy and laity in the dioceses were consulted about a number of principles, including the main principles that underlie the Measure. In 1972, a committee under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Manchester, noting the majority view in favour of these proposals, recommended that the present Measure be prepared. It took some time to prepare and was introduced into the General Synod in July 1974 and given final approval by 229 votes to 43 in July 1975.
It is true that the Measure was not formally referred to the diocesan synods for consideration. Only a limited number of Church issues can be so referred and in 1974–75 the ordination of women had a stronger claim. But over that period, particularly in 1974 and 1975, there was extensive discussion of the Measure in the Church and a great deal of correspondence about it in the Church Press and the national newspapers.
Finally, in April 1975 the Standing Committee of the General Synod took the unprecedented step of sending to all incumbents a short but well-written leaflet explaining the measure, telling them that it would come before the General Synod for final approval in July of that year and urging them to make their views known to their representatives in the General Synod. We all have difficulties in communicating with constituents, but there was an attempt to obtain the feeling of the Synod through the elected representatives and to allow all in the parishes to know that they must contact their

945
representatives in the Synod before the matter was finally decided.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: What evidence has the hon. Gentleman that the consultations took place? How many parochial church councils discussed the matter? How often was it discussed informally in diocesan synods? How many individual representations were made on these matters?
Mr. Walker: It is very difficult to give the exact number.
Mr. Cormack: A rough one will do.
Mr. Walker: That would be most misleading. The information is not readily available, but we shall see whether we can provide it in the winding-up speech. We discussed the matter in my own parochial church council and it was discussed within the deanery, but perhaps we do these things differently in Bristol from other parts of the country.
Secondly, there are those who will regret the breaking of the link between a parson and the land involved by transferring ownership to the diocese. We need to keep the matter in proportion. As can be seen in Appendix II of the Ecclesiastical Committee's report, fewer than 5,000 out of 10,500 benefices have glebe. In the majority of cases where there is glebe the income from it is far less than £1,000 a year.
The case for transferring ownership in the interests of efficient management is strong, but, recognising the continued local interest, the measure provides that the incumbent, or the church wardens if the benefice is vacant, will still be given notice of important transactions affecting the glebe, and given adequate opportunity to make representations about them.
Thirdly, it has been said that the Measure seeks to strip the country parishes of assets and to give them to urban areas. I believe that to be inaccurate, not least because it assumes that all glebe land is agricultural, whereas some of the most valuable glebe is within a three-mile radius of this House. As the Archdeacon of Bath told the Ecclesiastical Committee in a part of his letter that is not quoted, in his largely rural archdeaconry it is a question of a fairness between one country parish and another.
There is another fear—
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Is the hon. Gentleman leaving the question of rural areas? Is that all he intends to say about them?
Mr. Walker: I shall say something else about them a little later.
Many people fear—and this matter is especially important in the rural areas—that if the endowment is taken away, the parish will be more exposed to the risk of pastoral reorganisation. They believe that the Measure will make it easier for a parish to be grouped or merged with its neighbours. I can only quote what the Bishop of London said in the debate in another place:
"there is no substance in this assertion. I have been a diocesan Bishop for 21 years and I have been involved both as a Bishop and as a member of the Board of the Church Commissioners with innumerable schemes for pastoral reorganisation. I cannot remember a single one in which the diocese hesitated because one of the parishes was heavily endowed."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26th July 1976; Vol. 373, c. 1043.]
Mr. Cormack: What is the moral right to remove an endowment? On what does the hon. Gentleman take his moral stand for re-writing the wills of those who have left the land in question?
Mr. Walker: It is a matter of fairness. It is very important that we pay the clergy adequately and fairly, and therefore it is necessary that our resources shall be better managed. That is what the Measure is all about.
Mr. Cormack Mr. Cormack rose—
Mr. Walker: Many hon. Members will want to contribute to the debate, and I think that in fairness I should not take time by making a long speech, which is what will happen if I am interrupted. Right hon. and hon. Members will have an opportunity to present the case against the Measure.
I wish to emphasise that the Measure doth not affect trust funds held now or in the future by persons other than the Church Commissioners. It will be possible for those who wish to do so to give money to locally established trusts for the benefit of a particular parish, with the possibility that some or all of the income should be used for the stipend of the incumbent, or to help meet his working expenses.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Before the Second Church Estate Commissioner deprives the House of information that it might wish to have, will you tell us at what hour this debate must end? Is it 10 p.m. or 11.30 p.m.? The hon. Gentleman seems to be under the apprehension that unless he hurries through, failing to cover a great deal of ground, hon. Members will be prevented from speaking, but it is now only 20 minutes past 4 o'clock.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): The debate may continue until 11.30 p.m.
Mr. Walker: I do not expect, and my colleagues in the General Synod do not expect, that in future the Church will be the recipient of capital gifts and legacies on the substantial scale which would be required to make the criticism, that the Measure will discourage future private giving, stick. It is the regular giving of today's Church members which is now increasingly important.
Mr. Cormack: We have plenty of time and this is a vital Measure. The very Measure proposed is likely to deter people from bequeathing large sums. If people know that what they give will be guaranteed and their wishes honoured, they will be more inclined to give, but if the Church takes steps such as these, people will be deterred from so doing.
Mr. Walker: I want to emphasise that this Measure does not affect trust funds held now or in the future by persons other than the Church Commissioners. It is quite possible for money to be given to a particular parish to help with the stipend of that particular incumbent.
Dr. Alan Glyn: But the hon. Member has not answered the point. These funds are given by people on the understanding that they are given for certain purposes and for a certain church. This is like the rape of the monasteries when land is taken away and given to a general fund. How does the hon. Member think that anyone in his right senses will give a trust fund or money if he feels that a similar Measure will occur in another 20 years or so?
Mr. Walker: We all realise that the main contribution comes from lay giving and the Church Commissioners. Whatever assets we have available must be better managed, and that is why this Measure has been brought forward today. I recognise that some hon. Gentlemen will not accept this and these are matters which have been discussed widely.
Mr. Robert Banks: The hon. Member refers to the managing of these assets. In some instances the Church Commissioners find it necessary to sell off these assets.
Mr. Walker: This is not a matter for the Church Commissioners; it is a matter for the diocese to decide. The Church Commissioners are not involved. I have given an undertaking that the parishes will be consulted. If there were any question of land being disposed of, the church wardens of the parish would be consulted. This is not something which should be done centrally. It is a matter within the diocese and this is the way in which money comes through to pay the clergy, together with lay giving.
It is very important that where more and more money is needed to meet the bill for the clergy, this money is accumulated within each diocese. This is universally accepted through the Church. I recognise that hon. Gentlemen have exceptions to this view.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, on his enthronement in Canterbury Cathedral in January 1975, spoke of the importance of the Church of England nationwide having a full-time stipendiary parochial ministry. This has been the basis, and must remain the basis of the Church of England's mission and purpose. The Church is determined to maintain that ministry, although in the years ahead we realise that it must maintain it with fewer clergy, primarily because not enough have been ordained in the past 10 years, rather than for financial reasons. The clergy must be adequately and fairly paid. I hope that hon. Gentlemen realise the massive efforts made by the dioceses and the parishes of the Church of England to improve stipends of the clery.
The Church Commissioners are no longer simply concerned with administering the historic endowments of the Church of England. They are the Central Stipends

949
Authority and are actively engaged in encouraging the dioceses and parishes to provide the additional money needed to augment the income from the historic endowments for the clergy to be adequately paid. I shall put a copy of the Fourth Report of the Central Stipends Authority in the Library so that hon. Members can see what is being achieved. Efforts are being made to improve the stipend within the Government's pay policy, and this is in fact being achieved. Two-thirds of the new money is coming not from historic endowments, capital gifts and legacies, but from week-to-week giving by the people in the pews.
I accept that in the debate today we shall hear much for and against this Measure and that many people will feel that legislation of this kind is, in the real sense, a deprivation of what they have inherited from the past. I understand that point of view: indeed, I have much sympathy with it. However, I hope that I have said something to reassure people on that issue. The Church has to reckon in 1976 with the hard facts of life. If asked to give on a substantial scale out of today's earnings, lay people will want to know that yesterday's assets are being wisely and efficiently deployed.
I ask the House today to help the Church of England to do just that by agreeing to this Measure. It will bring forward the process by which the historic endowments of the Church of England are shared for the benefit of the total ministry of the Church to the nation as a whole, so that every parish will have some claim, directly or indirectly, upon the income from the endowments, and every parish will be expected, according to its means, to make some contribution from its present giving to the stipend and working expenses of its priests. This is most important.
4.28 p.m.
Mr. Richard Wood: I suspect that there are a great many hon. Members even if they, on balance, support the immediate necessity for a measure of this kind, who share some of my disquiet about it. This has been expressed already in a number of interventions by my hon. Friends. I am anxious this afternoon to give one or two practical examples to illustrate the disquiet that I feel. I ask my hon. Friend who will
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reply to the debate, the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), to answer these points so that the very real anxieties felt by people may be allayed.
The first church to which I refer is one in London—it is not necessary to name it. Like many other parishes, this one aims to meet its obligations to the diocese and the parish itself by the formation of a trust. This has been very successful because contributors to the trust know how much the church and the parish is worth to them. I understood that under this measure this sort of trust is in no way affected. I am bound to say that the introduction of this Measure gives me cause for certain fears for the future.
But the second church I have in mind, also in London, has only one considerable endowment, bequeathed to the Church Commissioners about 20 years ago, especially for the endowment and augmentation of that benefice. The departure we are suggesting from the will of benefactors such as this frightens me very much. There is no need to have a profound knowledge of the Bible to realise that a good many promises were made within the Old and the New Testaments which were extremely inconvenient and often very painful to carry out. One thinks of poor Jethro, who made that unwise promise which led to the sacrifice of his own daughter. One thinks of Herod, who ought to have known that Salome was likely to demand an unpleasant and painful reward for her dancing. The point is that those promises, and a great many others, were honoured at great cost.
The whole moral position of the Church is endangered by this disregard of the will of testators, quite apart from the discouragement it affords to others who are likely to feel more enthusiasm for their own church than for what, to them at least, is a remote bureacracy.
The third church that I have in mind is one in my constituency in Yorkshire where the rector has expressed considerable doubt—which I share, despite the explanation of the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker)—about the expected benefits from the more centralised management of glebe. I doubt whether this Measure will lead to those benefits. The rector I have in mind is also concerned, in his country parish, about the difficulties and expense of

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setting up such a private trust as I have explained was set up in one of the London parishes. He believes, and I share his belief, that there will be much support, if this Measure is adopted, for the formation of a more general trust which can accept and manage donations from any person for the benefit of any church or minister. This is likely to be one of the probable consequences which will follow the passing of this Measure.
The church I know best is in my parish in Yorkshire, and here I can only express the anxiety which will be only too obvious to those who attend churches situated in small parishes throughout the country. We are lucky. We share our priest with only one other parish. We are not at all substantially endowed and we could not support our vicar without help from the diocese. As I understand it, this is the central argument for this Measure and for continuing the process of strengthening the ability of dioceses to give help.
And yet I wonder whether what is being proposed is, in the long term, the right way forward. It must decrease the responsibility of individual congregations. If the Church is to survive in anything like the form we know, our parishes have to raise more money for themselves and not for the central funds of the Church. As one parish priest has well put it, we must become more congregational and less centralised. My fear is that this proposed solution to the Church's immediate problem may in the long run increase the problem by reducing the incentive for future benefactors in countless parishes to give generously to their churches.
4.34 p.m.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Perhaps it would be right—since you have informed the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that we have potentially a longish time for debate before us—if it were to be mentioned that the Second Church Commissioner, the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker), who has presented this motion to the House, has shown himself to be very active and concerned in ensuring that Measures of this kind obtain adequate opportunity for debate. If in the past that has occasionally not been the case it is certainly not the fault of the hon. Member.
952
Every Measure of this sort which is laid before us is accompanied by a report of the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament. Hon. Members who, in preparation for taking a decision upon this motion, have studied the report of that Committee will know that the Measure caused the Committee quite exceptional doubt and difficulty. The report we have before us is the result of the second attempt of the General Synod to satisfy the Ecclesiastical Committee.
Reading the report, it would be fair to say that if a report in these terms were tendered in connection with any other sort of legislation, that legislation would have very little chance of being accepted by this House. Let me remind the House why this is so.
There were three main objections or difficulties to which the Committee addressed itself. The first was the allegation that the proposals had not been
"adequately discussed at the level of those who were most affected."
The conclusion of the Committee upon that subject was not that this was a mistaken conclusion, not that the proposals had been adequately discussed at the level of those who were most affected. Its conclusion, which will be found in paragraph 13, is that:
"it certainly cannot be suggested that the General Synod has been guilty of any bad faith in the matter; at the worst they may have made an error of judgment in this particular respect."
The Ecclesiastical Committee, traditionally and rightly, is most careful to frame its comments in the most cautious and restrained language possible. So any hon. Member who is seeking reassurance that these proposals have been discussed at the level of those who are most affected—something of which we have to be satisfied before we are justified in approving the motion—will not be reassured by the conclusions to which the Ecclesiastical Committee came. He will conclude that the Committee's view was that there had not been such adequate consultation; otherwise it would not have expressed its conclusions in terms of that sort.
The second proposition which worried the Committee was that glebe land might not be better managed if managed and run by the Diocesan Board of Finance but would, on the contrary, be worst run. We turn to see what conclusion

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the Committee reached on that point. It decided that:
"the General Synod is at least as likely to reach the right conclusion as anyone else."
If one really wanted to give the House of Commons a hint as to one's opinion on such a matter, that would be an extremely effective way of doing it. If the General Synod, after all the information and advice that it gets on this subject and is entitled to receive, is no more likely than you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or I, to decide whether glebe land will be better managed, the answer is that we might as well toss a coin. So much for the major point which the Second Church Commissioner made in favour of this measure.
Mr. Michael Latham: While I appreciate the point which the right hon. Gentleman is making, and which is fair, may I, as a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee, ask him to refer to the second sentence of paragraph 15 which is particularly germane?
Mr. Powell: Certainly.
"The Committee asked for and were supplied with information and figures as to the working of these schemes which show that in the dioceses in question most of the glebe is now being managed by the diocesan authorities, and suggest that the cost of management is low in proportion to the increased income received."
That refers to the schemes which exist already and can be extended without this legislation.
I repeat: the conclusion on this second head of doubt was that it was an open question whether this Measure would on balance result, as compared with the present state of affairs, in the better management of glebe. Yet the Second Church Commissioner will recognise that it was perhaps on that point more than on any other that he sought to carry the House with him.
The third point is the one which would come most near to the anxieties of right hon. and hon. Members in their duty to ensure that the intentions of those who have made charitable endowments are as far as possible not interfered with. It is the difficulty, the objection, which comes most near to our duties in protecting those we represent, namely, the allegation that the proposed pooling "is unjustifiable and unnecessary, and involves a departure from the principles of charity law."
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The conclusion in paragraph 21 was that
"it becomes somewhat difficult to justify the taking away"
of the
"endowment income, however small"
from the individual parishes which benefit by it
"on the grounds of administrative convenience".
In paragraph 22, where the Committee is dealing with the fact that at present there exist diocesan arrangements for pooling, given the fulfilment of certain conditions, it says that
"the views of the objectors as to the value to the parish of an income of its own may not be entirely unjustified".
There, once again, is the typical meiosis of language of the Ecclesiastical Committee. I ask any hon. Member who is anxious if we are justified in sequestrating the endowments from their original purposes by this Measure, whether his conscience is satisfied by the conclusions arrived at by the Ecclesiastical Committee, when he considers how it said that
"it becomes somewhat difficult to justify the taking away of that income on the grounds of administrative convenience",
and that
"the views of the objectors as to the value to the parish of an income of its own may not be entirely unjustified."
In dealing with this last matter, the Committee turned up an interesting point, which it described as an "oddity" in paragraph 19. It is the fact that this sequestration—I use the term for convenience and with no critical implication—bites only upon existing endowments—future endowments, from the moment when the Measure comes into force can still be appropriated to individual parishes.
The Committee was well within its selfimposed limits by describing that as an "oddity". The House is being asked to say that the intentions of those who made an endowment for a parish a week, a year, 50 years or 100 years before the Measure comes into force can be disregarded, but that the wishes of the person who makes such an endowment the day after the Measure comes into force are to be sacrosanct. If there were the justification that is claimed for this Measure, those who put it forward would have the

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courage of their convictions to say that there shall be done for the future what we are doing for the past, and that an endowment to an individual parish must be regarded henceforth as an endowment to the diocese or the Church generally.
Thus, all three objections which were considered in the report on which the House is to rest its judgment, far from being rebutted, were in effect upheld; and we know that this was a case where, exceptionally, after all that had transpired, only an undisclosed majority of the Ecclesiastical Committee reported that the measure was expedient.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Would the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the attitude adopted by the Ecclesiastical Committee could be compared with the action of Pontius Pilate when he had a certain person come before him? Because he did not like what was proposed and what was likely to happen he was not prepared to do anything about it and he washed his hands of it.
Mr. Powell: I was delighted to hear the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) giving for once a favourable mention to Herod the Tetrarch. When so good an example has been set, far be it from me either to run down Pontius Pilate himself or to associate the Ecclesiastical Committee with him. I decline to be tempted by the hon. Gentleman.
There are many hon. Members nevertheless, who having read this report and having read between the lines as well as on the lines and being thereby, as I think they would be, persuaded that in any other circumstances this is a Measure which they would not assent to, will say to themselves—or it may be said to them—"But this is a measure submitted to the House by the General Synod after the most thorough consideration and after it has been approved in the General Synod by massive majorities. Surely in view of the relationship between the General Synod and Parliament we ought not to act in these circumstances as we would act with ordinary legislation?"
I refer to this proposition because I believe that there is arising—and it is important that it should be understood—
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a potential gulf, a divergence of attitude, between the General Synod and the House of Commons. The members of the General Synod, not unreasonably, looking at the enabling Measure of 1919 which they have inherited, may say to the House, if I may put words in their mouths, "You have disembarrassed yourselves of the legislation of the Church of England by setting up this now long-established machinery. Therefore, you must have intended the consequences of your action. You must have intended thereby that Measures that have been duly digested, indeed exhaustively digested, by the General Synod and which are commended as expedient by your Ecclesiastical Committee will be" I do not say rubber-stamped, but "passed, whatever your reservations, by the House of Commons."
From the point of view of the General Synod that is a natural but mistaken deduction. The House very often does in general terms what it does not intend in particular. It is an error in understanding the ways of the House of Commons to suppose that the consequences of legislation which it has accepted in the past will be regarded as binding upon it when it comes to consider their individual and practical working. From the point of view of the House of Commons it is impossible to say to us "Here is a Measure which arouses in you grave doubts as to the justice of what is being done, grave doubts whether it is consistent with the principles of the law of charity grave doubts whether it is fair to those who will be affected by it. Nevertheless you must not direct your mind to it in the manner you would direct your mind to any other sort of legislation." It is something which has sometimes been suggested to this House but rarely successful—in other words, that this House must not direct its mind to the individual consequences of measures that it is requested to pass. It is implicit in the relationship we have with the General Synod that the House of Commons, despite the simplification of the procedure, has in no way renounced, and cannot renounce, its duty, in this legislation equally with any other to consider the rights of the humblest citizen and the effect which the legislation will have on them now and in the future.

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But behind that question there lies an even deeper question—namely, whether this House ought not to regard its duty in relation to Church Measures as a formality because of the nature of this House. This is a subject of profound disagreement and misunderstanding. It is said by some to be a self-evident anomaly that this House, which is composed not only of Anglicans but of members of many religions, or indeed of those of no religion, should pass the ultimate verdict on the law of the Church of England.
This is a supposed rather than a real anomaly. We are concerned with the Measures of the Church of England because the law of that Church, being the esablished Church, is made by the law-making authority of the land. The religious composition of the law-making authority of the land is irrelevant to the validity of its actions or to the manner in which it performs its duties. I am happy that my Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, Jewish Members, and Members of no faith should participate in making the law of the Church of England just as they participate in legislation upon housing or town and country planning. We must not fall into the error of supposing that we are entitled, in virtue of a falsely conceived anomaly, to rubber-stamp and affirm that which otherwise we would hesitate to approve.
In what I have just said I was careful to insert the qualification that it is because the Church of England is established that its law is made by the law-making authority of the realm. There are only two sources of authority which are available; and if this source be rejected, the Church becomes a self-governing Church. That is the essential distinction between the Church of England as by law established and a Church of England the law of which was not made by Parliament. It would be a Church which made its own law.
Now, the difference between a Church which makes its own law and a Church the authority of whose law is derived from external authority—be it the secular law-making authority of the land or some other—is profound. It is—I use the word with due solemnity—the difference between a Church which is catholic and a Church which is not catholic. The catholicity of the Church of England
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depends on the fact that its law is made by the body which is the law-making authority of the land.
I apologise to the House if I have strayed too far from the immediate subject of the Measure that is before us; but my purpose is to argue that we in this House this afternoon have a duty to direct our minds to the consequences of this Measure exactly as we would if it were put to us in the form of a private Bill from a local authority or a measure emanating from the Government.
Finally, I wish to say to and through the Second Church Commissioner that it has often been our experience, after an earnest and lively debate on these Measures where there has been a definite balance of opinion in the debating Chamber, that when the Division bells ring the result is determined by what is called the pay-roll vote. I am not using that expression in any dispraise, far from it, but let me say this to and through the Second Church Commissioner who is an appointee of Her Majesty's Government—[An HON. MEMBER: "And unpaid."] Unpaid or not, he is still an appointee; indeed there are unpaid Whips and they too are appointees. I was saying that in so far as the Government regard these Measures as Measures in which to some extent the Government are involved, and in which they regard it as reasonable to expect that members of the Administration will support the Second Church Commissioner, let them be under no misapprehension that thereby they are taking responsibility for the contents of those Measures as they do for the contents of other matters they lay before this House.
I have no objection to that, because that is the way in which our law is made, and because my argument is that the law of the Church should continue to be made as the rest of the law of England is made. But let us not indulge in an irresponsibility whereby those who on the one hand say "This is just a Church Measure and has nothing to do with us" are on the other hand prepared to see it presented to Her Majesty's Government on the votes of those who are voting because they conceive that somehow these Measures deserve official support.
I shall vote against this Measure. I shall do so with regret since I recognise the tremendous amount of thought and

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effort which has been invested in it by the General Synod. But I shall vote against it because I am convinced that the case for it has not been made out and that the serious objections which have been urged against it on behalf of Her Majesty's subjects have not been rebutted.
4.58 p.m.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I should like in a brief speech to pick up some of the points made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and then to develop some of my Own.
Although the right hon. Member and I are members of the same Church, I am unlike the right hon. Gentleman since I find it somewhat strange in this House that non-members of the Church of England and of the Anglican communion can vote on the affairs of the Church. The other evening, for example, we had a tong debate on the Methodist Church and on the future of its property. I went home on that occasion because I felt that that was a matter which should have been dealt with by the Methodists. I did not think it proper that somebody who was not a Methodist should involve himself in determining the future policy of that Church.
I have long thought it strange—though I understand the historic reasons for it—that Jews, Methodists, Baptists, agnostics, atheists and, no doubt one day, Moslems and Hindus in the House should be able to decide the future policies of the Church of England and even discuss its services. The time has come for us to consider whether we should go on in this way. I take a view opposite to that of the right hon. Member for Down, South. It is clear when one looks around the House that most hon. Members have decided that this is not a matter for them and that they will not get involved by speaking or voting.
It is time for us to consider the disestablishment of the Church of England. Since the English revolution, the Church of England has been very much a corn-promise Church. One can be catholic—I use that term in the theological sense which I do not think is the way in which the right hon. Member for Down, South used it—protestant or part of the broad
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Church with a foot in both camps. I was brought up as High Anglican and I still have affinities in that direction.
There is a body of opinion in the Church that believes that the time has come for disestablishment. I share the view of Bishop Huddleston, who outlined a very good case for disestablishment in a Sunday Times article two or three years ago.
As always, the right hon. Member for Down, South has raised a fundamental question which we must all face—what should be our attitude towards Church Measures which come here from the General Synod or elsewhere? I do not think that we ought to be considering this Measure, but it is here and we must take an attitude towards it. I think that I have a right to take an attitude towards it because I am an Anglican. I would be different if I were a Methodist or a member of another Church.
Mr. John Ellis: Whether one listens to a debate or not, one must vote for or against a Measure or abstain, and we are therefore forced to take an attitude towards any measure once it is on the Floor of the House.
Mr. Heffer: That is precisely my point. According to some newspapers, one can be a brave man by abstaining to show disapproval of or lack of support for a piece of legislation. After sitting through the passage of legislation, some hon. Members have remained in their seats to show the whole world what they feel about that legislation. I do not necessarily intend to sit through all the proceedings on this Measure, but it is important to state one's views.
I am very torn on this subject. I can see the arguments on both sides and I may not vote because I do not know what is best. Paragraph 22 of the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee contains this important statement:
"Some of those who have objected to the Measure think that, though put forward as designed to provide greater equality in stipends, the Measure is really intended as a step towards the abandonment of the parochial system and the redeployment of the clergy in larger areas, and they think that the possession by a parish of an income of its own may help it to maintain its separate existence."
If I thought that this Measure was designed to centralise the workings of the Church so that there would be no

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local control in relation to clergy and so on, I should be very much opposed to it. That is the fear of those who argue against this Measure.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: If the hon. Gentleman thought that the Measure was not designed to achieve that end but that it would have that effect, would that make any difference to his judgment?
Mr. Heffer: I cannot believe that it is designed to do that, but it may have that effect.
Let me relate it to the example of political parties. I know that I am a difficult chap in some respects.
Mr. Powell: No, the hon. Gentleman is not.
Mr. Heffer: I think that if the funds in the Labour Party were centrally controlled and dished out to constituencies, the central body could determine who was selected to represent a constituency. Blokes such as me might never end up in the House—and that might apply to some hon. Members opposite if a similar system were introduced by the Conservative Party. I am not very much in favour of that type of centralised control.
Father Conrad Noel of Thaxted Church, which was quite famous in its day, wrote one of the best versions of the life of Christ—though I do not expect hon. Members opposite to agree with that judgment. Conrad Noel's concept was that Christ was crucified because he was a revolutionary, because he wanted to change the world, and because he was not happy with the Establishment of the day.
To me these are very commendable concepts. I have never been particularly happy with the Establishment of any day during my lifetime. I have always believed that we ought to try to change society in the direction of better progress and so on.
Conrad Noel was followed by Father Jack Putterill. Such people—and no doubt many others holding other points of view—might be regarded by some as being "odd balls"; I do not know. But I should hate a position to arise in which such priests could no longer find their way through and have the support of their parishioners.
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This is what worries me. I can see both sides of the argument. I can see the other powerful argument—that one of the difficulties at the moment is that the Church does not have its strength where it ought to have it: in the urban areas. In the urban areas we have the terrible problem of needing more money and more resources in order to ensure a better ministry in those areas. I can see that argument and I appreciate that the case put forward by the Church Commissioners certainly helps in that direction. I am torn because I see both arguments very clearly indeed.
I do not think that I have said anything particularly helpful in the debate, but at least I have expressed my fears about the situation. I shall neither enthusiastically support not enthusiastically reject the Measure. Although it was suggested earlier in the debate that the Church Commissioners were, like Pontius Pilate, washing their hands of it, I trust that I shall not wash my hands of it, but I might not be able to make up my mind one way or the other.
5.12 p.m.
Mr. Paul Dean: May I begin on a personal note by stating that I was born and bred in the country, have lived most of my life in the country, and have been fortunate in the places where I have lived, in that they have had active churches with their own resident parsons. I start, therefore, biased in favour of the status quo.
Recent events in my own experience, however, have made me realise that things are changing. We now have a united parish, with three villages, three churches, and one parson. We did not much like to begin with, the idea of joining with those foreigners in the next village. There was not a vast automatic outpouring of charity and love towards our neighbours. But we are now working together and I believe that the life of the Church has been enriched as a result.
My point is that, whether I like this development or not, it was inevitable because of the decline in the numbers of the clergy and because we could no longer afford to provide adequately for clergy stipends from the legacies of yesterday. I therefore found myself having to face these realities. Much as I should have preferred to remain quietly in my own

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neck of the Church of England wood, the fact was that it simply was no longer possible.
One of the main questions that we are considering here is how it is possible to conserve the best of a changing Church in a changing world. I support the Measure for two main reasons. The first is that we are considering a Measure which has been put forward by the duly constituted governing body of the Church of England, which is seeking the approval of this House. This has already been referred to on a number of occasions during the debate, and I shall come back to it in a moment.
But it is also as well to remember, as the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker) said in introducing the Measure, that it has been passed by the General Synod by an overwhelming majority, after a long period of thought and consultation. There have been and can be criticism as to the method of consultation, as to the composition of the General Assembly, and as to the way in which it consults and goes about its business. But no one can deny that a long period of thought has gone into the Measure.
We also have to remember, in spite of the criticism which was made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) as to the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee, that the Ecclesiastical Committee passed the Measure, albeit by a majority, and that it has also been passed in another place. Were we to reject the Measure tonight, therefore, not only should we be taking a contrary view to another place and to the Ecclesiastical Committee but we should also be taking a contrary view to the judicially constituted governing body of the Church of England.
The right hon. Member for Down, South referred to the constitutional position of Parliament, but I suggest that, if this House were to turn down Measure after Measure coming from the General Synod, the practical effect would be very serious indeed on the relations not only between Parliament and the General Synod but also between Church and State. I do not believe for one moment that, with a comparatively new governing body, which the Church of England now has, it would be possible to maintain
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reasonable relations between that body and this House if a substantial number of Measures sent here from it were to be turned down. We might very well find, therefore, that those who are in favour of disestablishment—the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has just referred to this, and I realise that there are some—would find their hands much strengthened. I should very much regret it myself if there were to be disestablishment, because I believe that it would lead, in the mind of the public, to a divorce between matters spiritual and matters temporal. In my view, the more they can be considered together, the better they will be.
Mr. Banks: Will my hon. Friend not agree that it was highly regrettable that the Ecclesiastical Committee decided in its wisdom or otherwise not to accept oral representations from a Member of this House?
Mr. Dean: I do not wish to judge on that. The Ecclesiastical Committee, in its report, referred to this matter, and clearly considered the precedents very carefully. But the main answer I would give to my hon. Friend is that it is clear from the report that the Committee invited that individual to give written evidence if he so wished, and I should have thought that that was a reasonable posture for it to adopt.
In considering the relations between the General Synod and this House, I much prefer the dictum laid down by no less a personage than the noble Lord, Lord Cross, the Chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee. In referring to what he thought were the appropriate relationships, he said:
"The enabling Act in 1919 gave the Church Assembly, which, of course, is now the General Synod, general legislative powers over matters affecting the Church of England, subject to the approval of Parliament. In those circumstances, it seems to me…that one should not simply ask oneself, 'If I was a member of the General Synod, would I myself have voted in favour of this Measure?'. That does not seem to me to be the proper approach at all. When a Measure has passed in the Synod, and especially by such huge majorities as in this case, there is a heavy onus on anyone who says that Parliament should reject it. One can conceive of cases where some measure, on grounds of principle, although passed by the General Synod, ought not to receive the approval of Parliament. But I do think

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that a strong case has to be made out"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26th July 1976; Vol. 373, c. 1060.]
Mr. Powell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did not interrupt the hon. Gentleman sooner, but I wonder whether, to avoid the creation of a precedent, you would confirm that it is out of order to quote in this House the ipsissima verba of another place during the same Session unless they are the words of a Member of the Government.
Mr. Michael Latham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. No Minister was involved in this matter, nor could there be by definition. Lord Cross of Chelsea, the Chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee, seems to have a special position in these circumstances which should be borne in mind.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This question has been raised recently. The general principle, as I believe I said, has been honoured more in the breach than in the observance. It should be a quotation from a Minister in the other place. But there is no objection to paraphrasing what was said by another noble Lord.
Mr. Dean: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your guidance on that matter.
I hope that I have made clear that, in my view, the clear dictum laid down by Lord Cross should be commended. I am saying not that this House should not debate, probe and question, particularly when temporal matters and individual rights are involved, as they are in this Measure, but that, to preserve a happy, practical relationship between Parliament and the General Synod, Parliament should think carefully and have strong reasons before rejecting a measure coming from the General Synod.
My second main reason is that the Church of England is saying that, in its judgment, this Measure is necessary in order that it may do its job properly in modern conditions. I wish to support that observation by quoting—I hope that I shall be in order—one of the reasons given by the Legislative Committee of the General Synod which forms one of the appendices to the report by the Ecclesiastical Committee. On page 17,
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dealing with the general reasons for this measure, the Legislative Committee said:
"Besides providing a more flexible use of stipends money, thereby assisting the creation of a more equitable structure of remuneration for the clergy, the proposals have also to be seen in relation to plans agreed by the diocesan bishops for a fairer deployment of manpower among the dioceses at a time when numbers serving the parochial Ministry are on the decline. Just as the clergy available must be deployed where the need is greatest, so must the Church be freer to direct its resources to pay the men where they are so deployed. The two needs are complementary."
I think that the hon. Member for Walton would probably agree with that in view of the remarks which he made earlier. Indeed, I think that the whole House, whatever view we may take on this Measure, would agree that the aim of a nationwide parochial ministry adequately paid must be foremost in our minds. In the view of the General Synod, this Measure is necessary to achieve that aim. I accept its judgment on that matter.
I understand and, indeed, share some of the misgivings which have been expressed. I think that they stem, at least in part, from the feeling in country areas that they will lose out to urban areas by this Measure. Therefore, it is only fair that I should quote from a letter which I have had from a highly respected and senior clergyman, who summarises that feeling in this way:
"Rightly or wrongly the feeling seems to be growing in the rural areas that at the same time as parishes are being grouped together and losing their resident incumbent, 'big brother' is trying to take away their endowments and glebe as well as asking them to raise even greater sums of money for Central Funds through the Quota."
There is no doubt that misgiving exists, particularly in country areas, and that it needs to be taken seriously.
However, other factors must be weighed in the balance. First, there is the point made by the hon. Member for Kingswood that very few parishes today can meet the accepted minimum stipends for incumbents out of endowments. I think that I am right in saying that the figure is only 413 out of 10,595. The numbers in this position are getting fewer all the time. The vast majority have to be augmented from central funds. Put in another way, one-third of clergy stipends now come from the men

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and women in the pew today. The gifts of yesterday are becoming more and more inadequate. In these circumstances, the Church cannot either convincingly or fairly ask for more money from people unless it can assure them that the existing resources are being used to the best effect.
I should like now to make a short quotation from my own diocesan bishop, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who has written to me as follows:
"In our drive for laymen to care more for their church by bigger financial contribution, we must be sure that the assets we have are properly used. This is manifestly not so at present."
It is clear from the dioceses which have voluntary schemes for the joint management of glebe that significant increases in revenue from existing assets are possible. It is significant that Bath and Wells has one of these voluntary glebe schemes which is working well. It is also significant that here is a rural diocese, if ever there was one, where the fears which I mentioned earlier could be expected to be greater than in a more urban diocese.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I ask this question solely for information, not for the purpose of argument. If a voluntary scheme is working well, as in Bath and Wells, why is it necessary to introduce compulsion?
Mr. Dean: I am glad that my hon. Friend has mentioned that matter. It is a fair point. Although the voluntary scheme is working well in Bath and Wells and in a number of other dioceses throughout the land, it does not include all the glebe. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to get the maximum advantage from a voluntary arrangement when there are patches of glebe throughout the dioceses which are not at present in the arrangements. It immensely complicates the administration and makes it more difficult for those who have co-operated to continue to do so on a free basis, because they realise that some are remaining outside.
Another point that has come out in the debate is that the pooling of resources in the way suggested will dry up future legacies and gifts to the Church. I do not believe that that will happen. People will always want to give to their local incum-
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bent and to their local church as a memorial to relatives and as acts of thanksgiving, and they love it. It is important that the prospective donors will still be free to make new gifts or to set up trust funds for the benefit of particular incumbents.
I quite agree with the suggestion that it is less likely, perhaps, in the future that money will be set aside for the benefit of individual incumbents. However, I suggest that there are many other worthy causes by which churches can benefit in the future and for which resources will be needed. We can all think of improvements that can be made to particular churches, which could be a valuable use of future funds, either trust or from individual donors.
We all recognise today that as churches are increasingly becoming centres of the communities in which they operate, the need to build on to the church a room for a youth club, for example, is very pressing. Here is another area in which those who wish to give to their local church will be able to do so without let or hinderance under the proposed arrangements.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, will he say whether he finds it an attractive moral proposition that it is acceptable to break faith with those who are now dead but, because of the advisability of luring further funds from the living, the wishes of the living must be honoured?
Mr. Dean: I do not accept for one moment my hon. Friend's value judgments on these matters. I think that he is attempting to purport moral judgments where he is making his own subjective judgment, as he is entitled to do. After all, throughout the ages Parliament has felt it necessary on occasions, for compulsory purchase, for example, for the building of roads, railways and the like, to change the use of property and to ensure that due compensation is provided. Surely it is wrong that Parliament should be able to do this in a whole series of areas but to deny the Church similar powers as long as effective and adequate compensation is provided.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) leads me to the point about the individual parson. It is important to recognise, as the hon.

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Member for Kingswood said, that the existing incumbent will be fully safeguarded under Clause 2. He will be guaranteed his existing income as long as he remains in the present benefit.
I therefore conclude by saying that although I understand the misgivings that exist about the Measure, I believe that the arguments in favour greatly outweigh the arguments against. I suggest, too, that we should not go against the conclusion of another place and of the Ecclesiastical Committee and against the considered judgment of the General Synod. I hope that we shall approve the Measure, thereby giving the Church the power that it feels it needs to work and witness effectively in the modern world.
5.34 p.m.
Mr. John Ellis: The contemplation of this Measure has exercised my mind considerably over the weekend, and before that. I am not a member of the Church of England. By the same token as that mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer)—who has departed from the Chamber—I should take no view at all on Methodist Bills. I cannot think that that is the right approach.
In these matters all Members of Parliament are asked for their opinions. We shall have a vote. Whether or not we are part of the organisation concerned, the Measure is before us for our consideration, whether or not we like it. I wish that we did not have to take decisions about what is, after all, the heartland of someone else's business.
However, I have been fascinated by the debate. Hon. Members have looked at the Measure and have argued about its merits one way or the other and about whether it will do the Church any good. I suggest that it is a matter for the Church per se whether it wants to do away with dioceses, to strengthen them locally or to go national. I know that the Church of England is established. However, I should think that any organisation, be it Nonconformist or Roman Catholic, would take the greatest exception to our passing any measures that sought to interfere with their own internal arrangements.
I put that forward merely as my view. Hon. Members may take another view
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that will guide them as to how they vote on the Measure. But that is the wrong way of thinking about the matter. The only point that we should consider is that we are changing the law as such. Is it right that we should change the law in this particular way? Looking at that point, I find very great difficulty, because it is right for the House to interfere in any matters that affect our national livelihood, and to take away from people's possessions by an Act of Parliament, though a serious matter, can be done by this House. However, when it conies to interfering with sections of the community not for that purpose, it is a different matter altogether.
If a man works hard and saves some money, when he has paid his taxes and when the due legislators, such as we, have passed the enactments, he should be allowed to spend that money as he pleases. [Hors. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Members must not cheer me from the Opposition Benches. This is not a question of earning £100,000, putting that in the bank and paying someone 5 per cent. unearned interest. That is a different matter. I am talking of money earned that is left as a particular bequest. I must say that if I were left in a position of trust, as an executor of my father's will, for example, or something like that, I should seek to carry out my father's wishes about how he wanted his money disposed of. If he wanted me to throw it in the river, that is what I should do, because he has an absolute right to say that.
Here is a Measure concerning people who, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason, have bequeathed land in certain specific ways. One of my hon. Friends was getting upset and saying that the Church of England would never go forward unless we changed some of these things. It may be all right from his viewpoint as a member of the Church of England to want to alter matters in that way. However, that should be no concern of the House of Commons. It should be a matter for the Church of England.
I have questioned what happens in these particular circumstances. I was brought up, if as nothing else, as a Primitive Methodist. The message was the messsage in those days, rather than all this talk about money and how much one was leaving.

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Will the Measure deter private gifts and bequests? That is the nearest I can come to my question about what happens when a man leaves money for a particular purpose.
"The Measure does not affect Trust Funds held by persons other than the Commissioners such as parochial church councils. Thus the Measure need in no way deter prospective donors from making gifts and bequests to local parochial trusts for the benefit of particular parishes."
That quotation is from background notes prepared for the debate which were kindly provided to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker) when I asked him a question. However, that is not the point that I want to establish. My point relates to the national justice of the situation. I have been looking through the notes, which say:
"Are the provisions of the Measure contrary to national Justice'?"
That is what I want to emphasise. It says:
"No. The term national Justice is used only in limited contexts such as the failure of a Judicial tribunal to give each party opportunity to state their case. The Commissioners are advised that in law there is no breach of national Justice if property is taken away from a person by due processes of law."
I am only a layman, but that seems to me to be saying that if the House of Commons passed the Measure that is fair enough, because it will become the law.
However, that is not the underlying fact that I am trying to consider. I have received only one representation from the parishes in my constituency, and I gather that they have some particular interest in the matter, so I suppose one can assume that the other parishes are satisfied. Therefore I do not receive much help from that.
I should like to be reassured on the question of principle because, from all that has been said both here and in the other place, it seems that people have been concerned only about what is good for the Church of England. That is not the point on which I seek guidance as I come to make my decision tonight. The question is whether it is right that, people having made known their views, and having decided that their money should be spent in a particular way, we should pass this Measure.
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There must be many churches that have gone out of existence. There must be many examples of charities providing for the maintenance of churches that are no longer in existence. Thousands of pounds must have been subscribed for things that no longer exist. Some parishes may have money that was designed for the upkeep of churches that have disappeared in the mists of time. If someone has left money to be used to repair the fabric of a church, or to keep a churchyard in good condition, or if he has left land for a specific purpose, is it right that we should take this action?
I can see that the Church of England is in considerable difficulty, but we as Members of Parliament are being put in a difficult situation. I fall back on the argument that the fact that there has been extensive consultation among Church people in arriving at this decision must weigh heavily with us, but I think that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) had a point in the case that he presented to the House. The argument about whether there had been sufficient consultation was rather trimmed, to say the least. I hope that in future the Church of England will conduct its affairs in such a way that if it brings a Measure before the House we can be certain that there is considerable agreement about it. Otherwise, we are placed in some difficulty.
Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I ask my hon. Friend to put himself in the position of the incumbent of one of the poorest parishes in the country. If he has a wife and family and is dependent upon the pittance that he receives by way of income, does my hon. Friend agree with the proposal before us if it means doing justice to that man and his family?
Mr. Ellis: That is a good argument, but that is not what I am considering. In the Primitive Methodist Church it was regarded as a debt of honour to provide a certain sum for the mission. If all the money to be paid out by the Church of England were pooled, and if every vicar drew out of it the same amount of money for himself, there would be no difficulty. My hon. Friend touches a sore spot. It would have been much better if the Church of England and the charities had approached the matter from

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that angle. However, the Church has not done that, but has come to us with this Measure in order to deal with the problem in a different way, and that creates a dilemma for us.
Mr. John Cope: The hon. Gentleman referred to consultation, and his hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker) quoted the Archdeacon of Bath in support of what he said. But the Archdeacon of Bath is also quoted in the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee as having said that there was inadequate communication at diocesan and local level. Will the hon. Gentleman take that into account in making his decision?
Mr. Ellis: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I was referring to what had been said by the right hon. Member for Down, South in connection with the report from the Ecclesiastical Committee.
I conclude by pleading with everybody in the Church of England in the Synod, and everywhere else, to make sure, before they bring any other Measures to the House that agreement has been reached on them, and thus avoid putting us in a dilemma.
5.46 p.m.
Mr. John Stokes: I think that the remarks of the hon. Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) have shown that, apart from the constitutional argument, the House is in something of a dilemma. When the established Church of this country comes to us with a Measure that has been considered by the Synod, most people—certainly non-Church people—would think that because the Measure has been passed by a large majority in the Synod it has the support not only of the bishops, the deans, the higher clergy and the parochial clergy, but of most of the congregations.
The first point that I make from my own experience is that neither the Church in which I have worshipped for many years nor I have been asked about this matter. It is true that my parish priest was asked for his views, and he is vehemently opposed to this Measure, as I am. I think that the Church places itself—and it is a shame for a Tory Member to have to say this—in an awkward and difficult position when it comes before us
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with a Measure which has the full support of the Synod but which we know does not have the support of many ordinary people in the news.
I am sorry that, as a loyal churchman, I must once again, as I did over the virtual abolition of the use of the Book of Common Prayer—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] It has happened, but I must not be diverted. I say only that that has happened in almost every church and it it now used at most once a month. It is a matter of sadness to have to say again that I disagree profoundly with a Measure that has come to us from the General Synod. The more I read of the debates in the Assembly, particularly the recent debates about a closed shop, the more worried I become. I fear that the division will be not between this House, which, as has been said, is sovereign in these matters, and the ordinary churchgoer, but between the Synod and the ordinary churchgoer, due to a serious failure of communication.
Let us first ask ourselves in this supposedly democratic Assembly what demand there has been from the parishes, from the people in the pews, for this Measure. It is well known in my constituency that I take a close interest in the affairs of the Church of England. Of the 83,000 constituents that I have, of whom by far the greater part arc, nominally at least, members of the Church of England, not one has requested that this Measure be passed tonight. I very much doubt whether more than 1 per cent. of ray constituents know that for many hours this evening this Measure will be debated by the House.
I am also worried about the argument for efficiency. It is always a dangerous argument, particularly for a supposedly spiritual body. We have seen the damage that so-called efficiency experts have done in many walks of life. I fear they will also now damage the Church.
The question of cost has also been mentioned. But at the moment glebe and so on is administered without cost. Surely, if we pass this Measure—and we have heard nothing of the finance necessary to establish the new Measure—there will have to be officials, some of them paid, to carry out the Measure at diocesan level.
But the most fundamental point of all, and the point which most matters to me

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as a traditionalist and as a Tory, is the violation of the wills and wishes of our forebears which should never be lightly set aside. I believe this Measure in the end amounts to nothing less than a sort of confiscation from clergy in the future.
This leads me to my second point—that this Measure will be a severe blow to the independence of the parish and its priest. In the matter of glebe we know that it breaks a personal link between the incumbent and his tenants. I fear that this action of the Synod is one more example of the so-called ecclesiastical bureaucracy trying to get its hands on the levers of power in the interests of efficiency. It is also evidence of the Synod's continual desire to reorganise and change what has been well established. What matters principally in the Church, as in any other organisation, is the people in it—the flesh and blood rather than the mere organisation and administration. The need of the Church today, we all know, is for more and better clergy and greater leadership from the bishops and higher clergy.
We would all agree that the strength of the Church of England has been, and still is, in its parishes. The parish is part of the emotions which we all feel which centre around our home and family. In this increasingly turbulent world in which we live the parish, to me at any rate, is the one centre of continuity, peace and calm. Why disturb this precious asset?
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Has my hon. Friend noticed that the very point he is making was emphasised in the Redcliffe-Maud Report on local government when it stressed that the parish was a significant unit of loyalty which the district, or anything else, was not?
Mr. Stokes: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He has made an important point. The sort of damage done by our ill-advised Local Government Act—the disappearance of old names, old centres and things that people could cling to—may well be done to the parish if this Measure is passed.
It is because I love the parish and its priesthood that I am so vehemently opposed to this Measure. In the country-
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side the parish is still the most important thing in most people's lives in the village. It symbolises our traditional way of life in England and the abiding nature of timeless values. Any weakening of the parish would make many people more rootless than they are today. People want stability, not frequent changes, from the Church. This Measure would destroy the parochial system which has the weight of over 1,000 years of English history to justify its retention.
Parishes will be stripped of their assets, and precious endowments given or bequeathed by generous benefactors of past centuries for the benefit of their own beloved parish church will be cast into a general pool without prior consent or even proper consideration. Holdings of glebe land now handled locally by un-paid church officials would be similarly merged and placed in the hands of distant, probably paid, officials.
I believe that this Measure also brings nearer the end of private patronage. An ecclesiastical bureaucracy would manage what I can only call the diocesan machine. I fear that the clergy's status would be weakened by this Measure and the time could come when the parochial clergy could be moved about like pawns on a chess board. Their independence would be threatened as well as their freedom of speech, and nonentities would be placed in charge of them.
I believe that this Measure will further alienate local congregations from their church, first as the loss of the personal Easter offering to their own vicar is, regrettably, already having an effect. Already churchgoers are starting to vote with their feet. If this Measure is passed this evening I fear that many a parish church will become emptier. At the very least I feel that we in this place, representing above all the ordinary person in the pew, should not pass this Measure until there has at least been evidence of much greater support for it from the parish priests and their congregations.
5.57 p.m.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: I should like to follow what my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) said and also to speak against this Measure. My hon. Friend touched, as he so often does, some of the deepest

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chords in the minds of the people of this country.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) talked of the three reasons which the Ecclesiastical Committee discussed. I was a member of that Committee. Although, as my right hon. Friend has rightly said, it would be improper to divulge majorities, I was a member of the minority which voted against the Measure. That helped influence the drafting of the report in the extremely lukewarm terms in which it was drafted. If one looks at the three issues discussed by the Ecclesiastical Committee, on every single count this House ought to say "No more. No further with this measure".
Let us consider the question of consultation. It is quite obvious from the many representations which many of us have received—those of us known to be interested in these matters—that, to put it mildly, there was considerable disquiet in the Church of England as to the manner, method and extent of consultation.
Perhaps I can declare an interest in this context. Speaking as a churchwarden I know that among my own parochial church council this matter was not brought before us from on high. There was no contact from our representative on the General Synod. There was no deep discussion. I know from consultation and discussion with friends in various parts of the country that the experience in my own parochial church council was by no means unique.
One then comes to the question of effectiveness. Is this change to be a change for the better? If one divorces every other consideration from it—personally, I should not like to do it—the test of the Measure is, will the latter state be better than the former? Many pointed questions were asked during the discussions of the Ecclesiastical Committee. It is a fact that, when the matter was first brought before us, many of the figures were not available to show what the quantitative or qualitative effect would be in the opinion of those who were propounding and proposing it. Such facts and figures as were available led only to the traditional Scottish verdict of "Not proven". There was absolutely nothing to indicate that the latter stage would
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be better than the former. Therefore, if the Measure were improperly—I do not mean that in a moral sense—and imperfectly discussed, if there was nothing approaching proof that the latter stage would be better, the House has a real responsibility in passing it.
I would echo the words of the right hon. Member for Down, South in warmly and sincerely congratulating the Second Estates Commissioner on the way in which he has fought to bring this and other Measures before the House for proper debate. He has performed a signal service for the House, the Church and the country. The moderate and sensible way—I hope that I do not sound patronising—in which he introduced this Measure was a pleasure to hear. He did not try to say that it was all right and that we must have it. He tried not to dogmatise but only to advocate a course with extreme caution.
Well might the hon. Gentleman be cautious. The third reason put forward by those opposing the Measure that the Ecclesiastical Committee considered is the reason I believe we should reject it. He who breaks faith with the past, as we are being asked to do today, will not serve the future well. Through the centuries, men and women have, of their charity and dedication, given to their churches. They have decided that they wish to express their piety, their devotion, in a tangible form. They have endowed, they have bestowed from their own goods upon the church which they loved. It would be an act of gross folly and of questionable morality for us to seek to eradicate the wishes of those people, to rewrite their wills and testaments.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) that occasionally it is right to consider a particular bequest. But we are not being asked today to deal with the particular or the individual. We are being asked to give total sanction to a general rewriting of thousands of bequests. There is a significant difference between the two approaches.
I should be very sad if the House were to say, in effect, to those who have given down the ages that, in the cause of efficiency and effectiveness, what they determined and decided is no longer "valid or relevant"—to use those overworked modern words.

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As has been said, in many dioceses there is a voluntary scheme which would approximate to the suggested national scheme. I do not cavil at that. That is fair enough, if people voluntarily make an arrangement within their own diocese with the individual incumbent. I can conceive of many circumstances in which I would enthusiastically advocate such a course. But again there is a world of difference between such a stance and this House saying that something must be done.
Compulsion is always a bad weapon. With the many precedents of recent years in mind—I refer not just to this Government but to Tory Governments—this House should be reluctant to take a power of compulsion where it is not necessary.
I fear that what we are seeing in the Church of England today is the beginning of the end of the parson's freehold and the parochial system. We all know that many in the Church of England wish to do away with the parson's freehold. One could argue that this Measure, the approach to the retirement age of clergy and the underlying designs of private patronage represent a three-pronged attack on the parson's freehold. But I believe that the parson's freehold is essential to the parochial system, and as an Anglican I believe that the parochial system is essential to the health and wellbeing of the Church of England.
I am presumptuous enough to suppose, furthermore, that the parochial system is of incalculable advantage to our society in general, to people in all walks of life, of all religious persuasions and of none. He who tampers with something which has stood the test of time must be very sure of his ground. For us to tamper with the parochial system in this way in the light of the lukewarm approval given to this Measure by the Ecclesiastical Committee would be a retrograde step.
I am delighted that we can debate this Measure at such length and at such a civilised hour and there are one or two other points which I should like to raise.
In a brief but emotional intervention the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) talked about the stipend of the clergy, the position of the—often young—married parson with a wife and family to
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support. In raising that matter, he was missing the point of this debate. The subject of this debate—I choose my words carefully—is far more important than the welfare of an individual incumbent. It is a matter of prime and absolute principle.
Of course many of us who are members of the established Church should hang our heads in shame when we consider what our incumbents are paid. Many of us do what we can, as in my own parish we have done, to give proper expenses allowances and so on to our incumbents. But that is an entirely separate thing from passing this Measure.
I want to feel that if—as I am a Member of Parliament, it is a very big "if"—I am successful enough to accumulate any wealth, I have some say over where it goes. I have a deep and abiding affection for the churches with which I have been associated already in my life and I should like to feel that I could leave something to them. But I should not be exactly encouraged by contemplating this Measure.
It is no answer to my doubts and uncertainties to say that it will be all right in future. This is a precedent. Once done it can be done again. The Measure, or something similar, could be reintroduced and re-enacted a generation from now. The hon. Member for Brigg and Scunthorpe (Mr. Ellis) made a perceptive and wise speech and I understand how he feels. I would regard his Church, the Methodist Church, in exactly the same light if we were meeting today to rewrite the use of the testaments of benefactors to that Church.
We must not break faith. If we wish to see the centralisation of the Church of England; if we wish to see bureaucracy within the Church increased, if we wish to see amalgamations which pay scant regard to the wishes of the local people and local parishes if we believe that people are digits and parishes are units and that the two can be juggled and changed around at will, then we can pass the Measure. But, if we believe that there is something of incalculable worth in the relationship between the vicar and his flock we should say to the General Synod—and I say this with a heavy heart—that it must think again and tell them that we cannot accept this.
6.12 p.m.
Mr. Robert Banks: I criticise the Church for this Measure not with an easy will or unhesitant determination. Rather, it is with a sense of deep reluctance that I make my criticism because we look to the guidance of the Church as a haven for trust and morality under God's law, outside political interpretation of how modern society should or should not be. That guidance has been explained in our prayers in the Chamber which have survived unaltered since their inception in the seventeenth century. Their meaning has all the more depth and magic because of their exquisite phraseology, just as I believe that the old form of the marriage service holds the balance of time which new words leave fragile on the shifting sands of modern fashion.
Endowments and glebe have over the years steadily gathered forces round the individual churches. At this point in the deep history of the Church we find a moment of precarious decline. Of course, the appeal and fortunes of our Church have gone up and down over the years, but here is the down point that goes one depth deeper than the low point in the historic graph of progress.
For four or five centuries our villages and churches have weathered the storm of unpopularity. They form the visual bastion of undeniable faith which has brought people, their efforts and endowments to the assistance of the Church. What do we find today in a period of unparalleled financial difficulties, but nevertheless much higher standards, for many more people compared with less than 15 years ago? We find that there arc too few ministers—too few clergy—to run an ever-diminishing number of churches. Parishes are grouped in threes and fours and daily the number of churches being closed, not used or maintained grows. Nothing like this has happened before in the long history of the Church, and the Church is in retreat.
Many provisions in this Measure are of deep concern to me. First, it is a breaking of trusts and the conditions of endowments made to protect certain churches. In a wholesale sweep it destroys trust, Trust is a bond similar to that of marriage and it ill becomes the Church to deal with it in this high-handed manner.
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There is nothing in the Measure which refers to the trust and obligations which the Church should have and which are to be demolished.
Giving to the Church is a personal matter with many interpretations. Essentially it is the connection between the Church, God and the person concerned that is the motivating factor. Giving to a fund involving the enduring endowment of shares, land or property does not create the same personal connection between the person and the place of worship which links the two with God. Therefore the Measure will confound the object of attracting much-needed revenue.
Secondly, I see no immediate benefit to the clergy. Those who at present receive endowments of over £1,000 will receive personal grants of the difference after the £1,000 has been taken away. Only 224 cases will arise out of the Measure if it is passed. Some incomes will fall and some will increase. Whilst glebe and endowment will go to the diocesan funds, the Commissioners will be responsible for passing the money to the stipends fund which, in turn, will pass it to the incumbent.
That does not mean that the clergy will find their stipends increased by £1,000 a year if their endowment now amounts only to £200 or £300. I hope that the situation will be clarified, because some people may he under the misapprehension that their total payments will be automatically increased.
I am also anxious about another small matter in the Measure—the provision dealing with the compulsary imposition on the clergy to pass on income from any letting that they may make. The provision will surely act as a disincentive to an incumbent to let out an unused part of his parsonage. Under the Measure the income from such a letting would go to the diocesan fund. The incumbent will have all the worry and inconvenience and perhaps other problems from such a letting, but he will be unable to get an income from it. He may experience tenants parking cars in his drive. No one can guarantee that he will let to good tenants. Despite that, he will get nothing out of it and it is therefore a disincentive to him to let part of his home to someone who might need it.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Does not my hon. Friend agree that that raises an interesting consideration? If the incumbent does not receive an income from the wing that is let, will he be able to charge against income tax for the cost of maintenance?
Mr. Banks: I understand that the cost of maintenance will be borne by the diocesan fund but that the incumbent will not have the advantage of tax paid against income. But he would not have the income anyway.
Thirdly, one of the crucial points is the position of the parochial church council. I am aghast at its omission from the list of those who were consulted when the Measure was drawn up. Shortly after becoming a Member, I went to the Library to try to obtain a copy of the Measure, but it was not available. I had great difficulty in obtaining one. I eventually received a photostat copy from a firm of solicitors.
I do not believe that many parochial church councils have considered the Measure in depth. We find from the findings of the Ecclesiastical Committee that a leaflet explaining the Measure was sent to each incumbent. So it should be, but should it not also have been sent to the parochial church councils?
The matter causes me great concern, because the involvement of people with their church in their villages or parishes in the towns is crucial for the Church. I am deeply concerned that the parochial church councils have had no opportunity to make proper representations on this important matter. After all, in the countryside in many instances it is they who will look after the glebe, decide who should cut the hedges and repair the fences, and deal with all the little problems that arise, such as cutting the grass. It is part of the duty that they take upon their shoulders for the village as a whole and for the church.
Under the Measure the administration is now to be done by the diocesan board, possibly acting through a committee. Who will serve on the committee? How big will it be? It will be dealing with all the little pieces of glebe land throughout the diocese. Its members will not know where to start in considering, for example, who should take the hay off the field, whether the local cricket and
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football teams should be allowed to use the glebe meadows, whether there should be a new building for a changing room and so on. Those are very personal but important matters in the parish. The transfer of the responsibility for ownership and maintenance of the glebe to the diocesan board will destroy much of the sense of the possession that is one of the strengths of the Church and its connection with the parishes that it serves.
Early in the Measure there is a reference to endowments which will become the property of the Commissioners, provided they are for the benefit of the incumbent. That means that the original trust, perhaps drawn up many centuries ago, must show that the incumbent personally would benefit from the revenue. That provision is in Clause 7(2)(a). But Clause 39 says:
"The liability to repair…the chancel…(a) arising from the ownership immediately before the appointed day of glebe land or any other property constituting part of the endowments of a benefice…shall…be transferred to…the parochial church council".
How is it that an endowment of the fabric of the church, not for the benefit of the incumbent, should be included in the Measure? That conflicts with what is said on page 5. How many parochial church councils realise that if the Measure is passed they will have to raise the money for repairs to the chancel, which could be a big item? That is a matter of great concern to most parishes.
On page 7 of the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee there is a reference to the Archdeacon of Bath, who supported the Measure but who believed that there had been inadequate communication at diocesan and local level. We heard earlier that the diocesan synods were not consulted about the Measure. The report says that the General Synod has not been guilty of any bad faith in the matter, and adds
"at the worst, they may have made an error of judgment in this particular respect."
That is one reason, if there were no others, for returning the Measure for further consideration and a fresh approach by all those concerned in the work of the Church of England.
6.27 p.m.
Mr. Michael Latham: This has been a magnificent debate, with a

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genuine flow of agreement and disagreement across the Floor of the House and between its Benches, and it is likely to continue to be so. It answers any suggestion that Parliament has no duty to discuss these matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks) made some pertinent points which will have to be answered. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) made an extremely damaging attack on the Measure. He raised the discussion to a high level and made a series of extremely practical points. I am sorry that he is not here, although he has heard most of the debate, because as a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee, which came down in favour of the Measure, I should like to try to answer him on the ground which he chose—that of history, tradition and, above all, the precedents in this House when dealing with matters of the established Church of England. As the right hon. Gentleman is not here, I hope that he will read in Hansard what I have to say.
On Sunday 14th July 1833 the man who did more than anyone else to restore sanctity to the Church of England, John Keble, stepped into the University Pulpit at St. Mary's Church, Oxford, to preach the Assize Sermon before the judges. That sermon, on national apostasy, was later described by John Henry Newman as the commencement of the Oxford Movement.
The pretext for Keble's sermon, which reverberated throughout the land and whose effects are still felt in every Anglican church, was the passage through Parliament of the Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act 1833. The effect of that Act was to suppress two Anglican archbishoprics and eight other bishoprics in Ireland, to cut the income of two bishops, to abolish church rate or cess, as it was called in Ireland, and to levy a special tax on Irish Protestant livings worth more than £300 a year.
The original proposal of Clause 147 of that Measure was that the proceeds of the tax should be used for secular purposes by Parliament, although that was subsequently dropped to ensure the passage of the Bill. In his Assize Sermon, Keble described the Bill as
"a rejection of a national profession of religion."
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In "Tract for the Times No. 1", which Newman wrote and distributed in the last 10 days of August 1833, he asked what would be the basis of the authority of a clergyman of the Church of England
"should the Government and the country so far forget their God as to cast off the Church, to deprive it of its temporal honours and substance."
I mention that great Victorian controversy for two reasons. The first is the irony that an attempt by Parliament in 1833, supported by some of the Anglican hierarchy but against the wishes of many others, to deal with an unsatisfactory distribution of income in the Church sparked off the Oxford Movement, which changed the face of the Church of England beyond recognition. Yet now, in 1976, it is the Church itself, through its General Synod, which is trying to persuade an obviously reluctant House to agree to a redistribution of its income which its leaders want but which obviously a substantial number of hon. Members do not want.
The second and more important reason is that the 1833 Act was the first of the series throughout the 1830s and 1840s designed to reform the Church. Most of these were involved with the suppression of ecclesiastical income. Here I meet head on the objections to the Measure itself which have been made by the right hon. Member for Down, South and other hon. Members—the threefold objections which are the core of tonight's debate.
This is not the sort of Measure which I would naturally support. When the Ecclesiastical Committee began discussing this, I was opposed to it at first, but the more I considered it and refreshed my memory with historical precedents, the more I felt compelled to support it.
I do not propose to devote a lot of time to discussing the first two objections made by hon. Members—those of lack of adequate consultation and greater bureaucracy. The first is fair. I do not think that the Church has consulted enough, but that in itself is not an appropriate reason for the rejection of this Measure by Parliament. As for diocesan pooling, the information which the Committee received from the seven dioceses which already operate the system showed negligible administrative costs and a substantial increase in glebe income.

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I am sorry that those who drew up the report did not include these figures in it. The judgment of the General Synod in this matter is likely to be as good as anybody's. This, in itself, is not a condemnation, as the right hon. Member for Down, South suggested. It is an honest statement and we must decided whether we should put our judgment above that of the Synod. A great deal of time and care has been devoted to this judgment.
The third objection provides the real thrust—that it is a breach of the principle of charity law, in that it involves the confiscation of assets and contravention of the wishes of donors. In this context I recall the words to this House on 19th July 1836 of Sir Robert Inglis, Member for Oxford University, who said, bearing in mind that in those days Hansard was reported in the third person:
"He admitted the lamentable poverty of some of the ministers of the established church, but the destitution of one body of the Clergy, which he regretted, was not to be relieved by a kind of legalised robbery of another. If the destitution existed, let it be remedied by another means."
The purpose of the Bill under discussion at the time was to set up the Ecclesiastical Commission, to take money from the richer sees and to give to the poorer o1ies and to set up two new bishoprics. The Bill received a Third Reading with an overwhelming majority.
I take another quotation:
"He objected to the Bill because it gave a shock to property; secondly, because it would not remedy the abuses of cathedrals, and thirdly, because it would frustrate the very object for which it was introduced. Men had been allowed to bequeath their property for these purposes and their bequests ought not to be interfered with on the mere pretence of general improvement. He thought they had no right to violate the wills of founders of cathedrals. He believed that the object of the noble Lord might he carried into effect consistently with the wills of founders of cathedrals, and it was contrary to all reason and to the rule of law respecting bequests to violate the wills of founders when the object could be gained by respecting them."
Those were the words of a rising young Tory Back-Bencher who subsequently went bad politically, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, on 29th June 1840. Or again in the words of the Bishop of Winchester on 27th July 1840:
"What right had the legislature so to deal with property given for certain specific pur-
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poses—not by the State but by individuals forever?"
Finally, I quote from outside this House a statement which received great publicity at the time:
"The method in which the Church is paid, and must continue to be paid, is by unequal divisions. The respectability of the Church, as well as of the Bar, is almost entirely preserved by unequal division of their revenues. At present men are tempted into the Church by the prizes of the Church, and bring into that Church a great deal of capital which enables them to live decently. The officers of the Church would then fall down to men a little less coarse and ignorant than agricultural labourers."
That statement came from Sydney Smith in his famous first letter to Archdeacon Singleton in 1837. All three of those people were speaking about the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1840 which suppressed 360 non-resident canonries, about 70 sinecure rectories and all resident canonries other than four, and pooled the revenue from them under the Ecclesiastical Commission.
The arguments against the Bill, especially that of Gladstone which I quoted, are exactly the same in principle as those which are being used today. Parliament did not accept them in the last century. Sir Robert Peel himself, as Leader of the Opposition, did not accept them and indeed supported the Acts of 1836 and 1840, and I suggest that there is no good reason for accepting them now.
Above all, this Measure is about the financial needs of the Church. In the words of one of my constituents, a rural vicar with glebe land:
"I will be glad to be relieved of direct involvement in glebe for a different reason. As the rent comes direct to me through the agent I am at the mercy of the farmers who pay it. Sometimes a quarterly cheque for £70 has been two months late. When one is living right on the debt line, this is a very anxious matter."
The House should note those words "right on the debt line". We arc discussing the remuneration of the clergymen of the Church of England, and let us not mince words—their pay is appalling. The latest details available are contained in the report of the Church Commissioners which relates to July 1975. Page 12 of the Ecclesiastical Committee's report gives slightly more up-to-date information, but as of July 1975 the salary target range for an incumbent was £2,100 to £2,500 a year. Of the 8,503 incumbents nearly 3,000 fell

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under that target, being 35 per cent., compared with 32 per cent. who fell below the previous year's target range of £1,850 to £2,150. Considering the responsibilities and the training involved in becoming a beneficed clergyman, those are terrible figures.
The situation is quite scandalous for curates. The national pay scales for up to eight years' service was, in July 1975, £1,300 to £1,600 a year, with a £50 child allowance compared with £1,050 to £1,410 the previous year. No doubt there was a further increase in April this year, but these still remain very bad figures, especially as the Commission provides only two-thirds of the stipend. The rest comes from the laity. Indeed, in 1975, the laity provided £7·2 million towards stipends, and £2·8 million towards working expenses of beneficed clergy.
Let us be frank about it. The Church is facing a horrific resource problem which can be solved only by raising more money and by seeing that the money which is available is spent to the best advantage. If the Church itself comes forward with detailed proposals in this regard, the House of Commons should think very carefully before rejecting them unless it has some better suggestions.
The constitutional argument has now come full circle. Newman, Pusey and Keble argued against Parliament suppressing surplus church property because it involved the interference of a no-longer Anglican body in religious matters. With the admission of free churchmen and Roman Catholics into the House of Commons, the days were gone when Richard Hooker could argue that
"There is not any man of the Church of England but the same is a member of the Commonwealth, nor any man a member of the Commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England."
If that was no longer so in 1833, it was even less so when Convocation was reestablished in the 1860s or when this House set up the Church Assembly in 1919 in order to provide for more satisfactory arrangements for running the Church of England.
I accept at once that this House has the right to reject a Measure of the General Synod of the Church, especially in matters of administration of property rights. Before any hon. Member takes
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such a step, and I realise that this will not be a popular thing to say, I ask him to consider two things.
The first is that where the secular arm, whether this House or the courts, has tried to impose a solution on the Church the results have often been unsatisfactory. The Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, with which Disraeli was to "put down ritualism", resulted in five clergymen going to gaol, to the great scandal of the faithful.
Our decisions in this House to reject in 1927 and 1928 the Revised Prayer Book—which had already been approved by another place, as has this Measure—were ignored by the Church. It went on and used the Prayer Book anyway.
The record of the courts in religious matters is so difficult and so poor that the Gorham judgment in 1850 led to the secession of Manning and others to Rome and the Colenso judgment of 1865 led to a schism in South Africa which was certainly still in existence in 1964 and which I believe exists today.
The second reason why hon. Members should think carefully before rejecting this Measure is that, as we know, the job of the Anglican clergy is to read and preach the scriptures, to teach the Catholic faith, particularly as defined by the Nicene Fathers and to administer the sacraments which Our Lord founded. To do that efficiently they need to make the best use of resources.
This Measure has ample historical precedents. It has been drawn up by the body which this House founded to act in these matters, the General Synod. It has been scrutinised in detail and approved by the Ecclesiastical Committee and by another place. It is a further step in the continuing reform of the Church which has gone on for hundreds of years. I believe that this Measure deserves the support and approval of the House.
6.42 p.m.
Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I support this Measure. I hope that those who have spoken against it will have changed their minds by the time the debate ends.
As we travel through the country, we know that there are a number of wealthy parishes. Many of us have seen

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the movement of clergy from one parish to another. While none of the clergy says that this is because of pay, conditions in some of the parishes in which they have begun their Christian work have been so bad that I have wondered why they remained. It can have been nothing but faith in the work that they were doing that made them stay. God knows that they are sacrificing a lot to teach scriptures to the people of their parishes.
It is right that the wealthier parishes should be brought into a scheme, as this Measure proposes, to help the poorer parishes. An hon. Member said that this Measure represented nothing more or less than confiscation of endowments and glebe. I hope that he will think carefully before the debate ends. This Measure is nothing of the kind. It proposes the pooling of endowments and glebe so that the money may be used by more parishes throughout the country.
If we carry this Measure it will enable the Church of England to see that there is fair play and to ensure that those who are suffering most because of their Christian beliefs are helped. As I understand it, and I admit that I have no brief whatever, this Measure has that one objective.
I have enjoyed listening to those who have done their homework and who know something of the historic background of the Church of England. I have been pleased to have the opportunity of listening to those with whom I disagree. They have let in a breath of fresh air. They have not, however, changed my opinion. This Measure is an element in an overall strategy aimed at securing more adequate pay for the clergy.
This Measure has come rather late. We all appreciate that there has never been a time in the history of man when our Church has been more needed, when the teachings of Christianity have been more necessary. Parliament would be making a great mistake if it encouraged a weakening of an already serious situation.
Today we can see absolute poverty in many of the households of the clergy. The need for the influence of the Church has never been greater than it is today.
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This House will be performing a service to mankind by supporting this Measure tonight, in the Lobby if need be.
6.49 p.m.
Dr. Alan Glyn: I agree with the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) on two points only. We all know that most of the clergy are inadequately paid and that many are badly housed. Secondly, I agree with his profound observation that never in our history have we needed Christianity more than today. I cannot agree that this Measure is the correct method to adopt.
The Measure can be looked at in three ways. First, is it a good Measure and does it achieve what we want? Secondly, does it take away the freedom to appoint clergy? By taking out the glebe land, one does not take from the owner of the living the right to appoint, but one makes it less attractive to a potential incumbent. Here the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) made a good point.
The third question which is probably even more important is whether it is moral to sequestrate glebe land, land which has been given by our forefathers for specific charitable purposes, and yet at the same time, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said, permit exactly the same thing to happen in future. I find it difficult to reconcile those two things.
This is such a fundamental issue in the Church that I am extremely glad that we have been able to have a full day's debate on it. This Measure must be considered in the same light as any other Measure which comes before Parliament, whether it be a private Member's Bill or a Government Bill or indeed anything else. Whatever faith to which we belong and whatever our feelings, every hon. Member has a right to speak in this debate and to express his view. The Measure must be discussed here as this is the supreme legislative Chamber.
I am glad that we have an established Church, and I am proud that it is part of the State. I see no reason why we should not comment on Measures such as this, even though it may have been the result of a great deal of work on the part of a number of people. It is our duty to incumbents and to this House to

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ensure that it is scrutinised. If we have any doubts—as many of us have—about the validity, or propriety in some cases, of parts of this Measure we should not hesitate to vote in the correct way.
I said in an intervention that this matter was similar to the rape of the monasteries, but I shall develop that theme later. I believe that the glebe land has a special meaning in many parishes particularly in the country.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton touched on an important matter. If, for instance, an incumbent moves, his glebe land and the glebe land of this new living—both of which may be extremely valuable—passes from the living, if it is a living to which a person may appoint, that living will be less attractive. This will make a difference to the appointments within the Church and, over a long period, patronage may well go by the board. If that did happen the whole of the power to appoint members of the clergy would pass into one hand only.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton was right. Constituencies have a right to appoint independently. If it were done centrally a different composition might result. The hon. Member's comparison was valid. Although we may not see this happening for some time that will be the effect in the long term.
Once a sitting freeholder goes, the glebe land attached to his former church goes. This could result in the clergy not wishing to transfer from one parish to another. I can see my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) making notes on this. No doubt he will take me up on it. This could result in people who have valuable livings not wishing to move from one living to another for financial reasons. We ought to consider that.
I wish to quote a case of which I have personal knowledge. In my Clapham constituency there was a church which has some glebe land and the incumbent, understandably, when he wished to build a new school, thought that he could not do so because the glebe land would have to be handed back. I told him to look at the deeds where he would find that the deeds were vested in him and that he was the owner of the glebe land for as long as he held the living. As a result, the glebe land was sold and a deal was done with
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the then Minister of Education and a brand new school was built. That would not have happened if we had not been able to find the basic cost of £16,000. A benefactor had given us the land and had enabled us to benefit as a parish. Had that land passed to the general fund, we should not have had the chance. I fought hard, and every device was used to stop us using that money to build a school because it was wanted for something else.
This Measure raises considerable constitutional issues. There may well be a financial benefit in the short term, at the expense of the sequestration of other people's property, but I wonder whether people in future will be encouraged to give money in trust to the churches. I certainly would think twice and would say "If this Parliament can take one lot away why should not another Parliament take another lot away?"
I am sure that the intentions are good but I draw the attention of the House to page 10 of the report. It is a good summary of what could happen if we passed this Measure. On the ground that I do not believe that the grantors' wishes should be frustrated—it will restrict appointments to the Church—I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will think carefully before passing this Measure. I do not think that a Measure of this sort should go through the House.
6.59 p.m.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) expressed my views on this matter. If I understood him correctly, he said that he had wrestled with it because it is a question of a conflict of right with right. I agree with him.
Unquestionably, it is the right of those who propose the Measure to seek to use more efficiently the funds that are generally available to the Church and, in particular, to try to improve the miserable pay of many of its clergy. All of us will well appreciate that point.
As the hon. Member for Walton said, the Church now needs to move in much more vigorously to those deprived urban areas where the Christian message can be of great importance. I support that view. On the other hand, I must confess that I am troubled by some of the principles

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that underlie this Measure. I intensely dislike the idea that Parliament should reach back into the past and pervert, for that is what it is, the intention of somebody who left a sum of money or land for a particular purpose. I am not sure that it is right for us retrospectively to pervert an intention honourably entered into.
It may be that in the past some of those who left a glebe in an endowment did so because they sought to secure their place in Heaven afterwards—I almost said "in another place" but that would be an inappropriate description—but, whatever the motivations of those who have given of their wealth to the Church, they have done so in the certain belief that their intentions would be honourably carried out. Therefore, it is a big step for Parliament retrospectively to pervert, destroy or smash that intention honourably entered into.
I must also confess to having some fear that this Measure could lead to the bureaucratisation of the Church. I see merit in the parish incumbent being able to say "Boo" to his bishop. Not all bishops are always right and many bishops are frequently wrong. There is great merit in a catholic organisation, such as the Church of England, taking into itself a variety of men of strong views and men who may disagree but who may at the same time have institutionalised support to enable them to disagree occasionally with their ecclesiastical superiors.
It troubles me when I examine this Measure to feel that an incumbent could be deprived of the assets given to him by history and that there could be a situation in which he would no longer feel able to disagree with his ecclesiastical superiors, who in future would have an economic sanction against that incumbent. To put the matter crudely, we are putting in the hands of the diocesans a spoil system: the ability to hand out rewards to those of whom they approve and somehow to damage the economic situation of those of whom they disapprove. I have put that far too crudely and I do not believe that it would happen in that fashion, but the danger exists of reducing the relatively independent parish clergy to bureaucrats who could be dealt with in that way by their superiors.
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In common with most hon. Members, I am troubled by this Measure, and I judge it on three main principles. The first is the question of the retrospective compulsory acquisition of somebody else's property, virtually without compensation to the person whose property is taken, and certainly without any statutory right of appeal to an independent body. It is quite new for this House to take such action. I and many other hon. Members have had some responsibility in Government, and we have all had experience of the effect of compulsory purchase orders. We know that it is not always easy to arrive at the right decision when seeking compulsorily to purchase other people's land, a function that is necessary in any society.
That function is performed in our society on the basis of three clear considerations. First, we allow the State or its agencies, locally or nationally, to take away other people's property because it is in the public interest so to do—not in a sectional interest, but in the community's interest as a whole. Secondly, we compulsorily take away people's properties on the authority of an accountable Minister—a person who is accountable to this House and, through this House, to the electorate. Thirdly, whenever we compulsorily acquire other people's property, we have a mechanism of appeal.
However, in this Measure none of those three criteria is met in any way. There is no question of saying that the property shall be compulsorily acquired for the community at large. In this case it is being acquired for the sectional interest of the Church of England—and only the Church of England and nobody else. That property is to be taken away for a narrow sectional interest.
It happens that I am a member of the Church of England, and to that extent I recognise that it is a redistribution within a Church, but the point is that it is to be done by compulsion. The use of compulsory powers of law to take away from a man something not for the community but for a sectional interest is what is being envisaged. I do not believe that this House has previously agreed to any such breach of the normal principle.
Furthermore, there is no question of an accountable Minister sanctioning that

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compulsory acquisition. No Minister responsible to this House, or through this House to the electorate, will stand up and be counted for the compulsion that is to be applied. There is no accountability, because once this House passed this Measure the whole decision process will rest with a private collective group.
Finally, there is no appeal whatever if any Government, be it Labour or Conservative, come to this House with a proposal under Clause 15—namely, that glebe lands should be vested in a diocesan board of finance without any conveyance or other assurance, and if there is a dispute it is to be decided by the Commissioners whose decision shall be final and binding on both authorities. No independent body is to he involved but the matter is to be fixed by those who have an interest in the matter. That is wholly wrong as a matter of equity.
Therefore, in reply to the first precept I apply to the Bill "Is the retrospective compulsory acquisition, virtually without compensation and certainly without statutory right of appeal, justified?", I have to reply—as a Member of Parliament rather than as a member of the Church of England—that it is not.
I turn to my second criterion—namely, the matter of retrospection. This House has never liked retrospection, and I hope that it will never will. But by this Measure we are to reach back into the past and deal with endowments made in good faith by individual citizens, some hoping for their place in Heaven, some no doubt wishing to dispose of wealth which they can spare, whatever their reasons, but disposed of as an act of faith. Therefore, it is a bold step for us now to say that all those acts of faith over the centuries and through the generations shall now be put aside, but that any new acts of faith that may happen to be made from the point when this Measure is passed will nevertheless be sustained.
The right hon. Member for Down South (Mr. Powell) made this point and I echo it strongly. There is something intrinsically illogical, if not immoral, in the notion that an endowment made before today shall be capable of being disposed of by the diocesan commissioners without appeal or argument while
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from tomorrow any new endowment shall benefit from the protection of the law. I do not believe it. Once we establish the principle of retrospective confiscation of rights, glebes and endowments, no one will ever again accept our word.
My third judgment must be not only on the objective merits of trying to help the poor clergy and providing funds for urban and suburban pastorates, but on the quality, competence, intentions and trustworthiness of the expropriators—the diocesan boards and the General Synod. Some of my hon. Friends have suggested that because this Measure was recommended to Parliament by the Synod, we should accept it. I do not share that view. I listen to the views of the Synod and respect them, but the fact that it has arrived at a particular conclusion is no more than a fact which I must take into account.
I am not convinced that the record of the diocesan Commissioners and the General Synod in property management is particularly good. Many people in property management would say, if they examined the record of the Church of England in property, that it is manifestly incompetent and, in some respects, has been a disgrace.
I should be grateful if a question which I have on the use to be made of this money could be answered immediately. Am I correct in believing that all the money taken in as a result of this Measure must be used exclusively for the stipends of the clergy? If so, I need not take the matter any further.
Alternatively, will these be general funds capable of being used for such purposes as diocesan boards think fit? Have they a general right of disposition of funds rather than a covenanted obligation to use them for stipends? If so, for what other purposes might the funds be used?
Some of the uses to which Church funds have been put in recent years have filled me with shame. I need not rehearse the use of Church funds through the World Council of Churches for international purposes of which no Christian could approve and it would be wrong to go into that now, but if the funds received from glebes and endowments could be used other than exclusively for clergy stipends, I could not, on that ground alone, agree to this Measure.

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Those who granted the glebes and endowments were quite clear in their intentions for the use of the resources. If funds created in that way were to be used for political, semi-political, or semi-evangelical purposes elsewhere in the wide competences of the Church, I should regard that as entirely wrong.
Mr. Peter Rees: I am listening to my hon. Friend with great attention and he alarms me. Can he give any examples of Church funds, as distinct from funds subject to quasi-charitable bequests, having been used for semi-political purposes, leaving aside synodical purposes? I think that perhaps he has in mind the support of political movements in Africa, but I should be grateful if he could make it clear, because his remarks have alarmed me.
Mr. Griffiths: The World Council of Churches has probably benefited from Anglican subvention. It may be that in making that subvention the Anglican Church has set a limit on the uses to which it can be put. However, the World Council has certainly given support to causes in parts of Africa which have caused terror and atrocities. In so far as any assistance from the Church of England may have enabled the World Council of Churches to use funds for that purpose, that is a danger inherent in this Measure if there is not an exclusive requirement that the money be used for stipends.
Mr. Terry Walker: May I refer the hon. Gentleman to what I said in introducing this Measure? The income can be used only to provide stipends, pensions and housing for the clergy; it can be used for nothing else.
Mr. Griffiths: I am pleased to accept that assurance. If funds are to be used exclusively for stipends and supporting the clergy, I am glad to have elicited that clarification. I did not understand that to be the position.
I have been torn in both directions on this matter and I shall finally vote generally rather than specifically. I shall vote in part on whether I am prepared any longer to accept that the General Synod of the Anglican Church is the best organisation to run it or the best organisation to give advice to this House.
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The Sunday Telegraph said recently:
"Just as there are people in the Church who appear to think that messing about with the language of the Prayer Book will miraculously fill empty pews, so there are people (perhaps they are often the same ones) who evidently suppose that spouting trendy Left-wing notions and jargon is a necessary part of the Christian mission today. What this sort of truckling to fashion or temporal power really achieves, of course, is a further decline in the dignity and authority of the Church."
I do not go all the way with the Sunday Telegraph, but as a lifelong member of the Church of England, I have been worried and deeply disturbed by some of the tendencies which have found their way into the General Synod in recent years. I have been worried about the explosion of double standards in the Church and disturbed by the persistent attempts to change everything regardless of whether it is necessary.
Many of those who have now reached high positions in the Church are putting trendiness and faddiness ahead of Christian duty and have succeeded in making many people, such as myself, feel strangers in our own Church.
I have read what the Synod has to say. I have read with greater attention what the Ecclesiastical Committee has to say. I take both reports very seriously. In the end I shall reluctantly vote against the Measure, and I shall do so more than anything else as a vote of no confidence in the General Synod of the Church of England.
7.20 p.m.
Mr. Ivor Clemitson: The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) talked early in his speech about the importance of the Church operating in deprived urban areas. I remember that I served my title in just such a deprived urban area in downtown Sheffield, in a parish of nearly 15,000 souls, a number of whom were living at that stage in back-to-back houses. The housing conditions of many others were also very poor.
I remember, too, that after serving in that parish for three years it was time for me to move on. It so happened that the vicar of the parish was due to move as well. I agreed to stay on for three months to cover the interregnum—or, at least, I hoped to cover the interregnum The interregnum tasted for nearly 18 months. Two miles up the hill, on the

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other side of what the then Bishop of Sheffield, Leslie Hunter, described as the social apartheid of Sheffield, was another parish in a rather more salubrious area. It also had an interregnum, and it lasted precisely one month.
What is the nature and purpose of the Church? This question seems to me to be behind all the criteria which have been suggested for use in judging the Measure. I regard it as the most fundamental criterion of all. Does the Measure contribute to the better performance of the true nature and purpose of the Church? This seems to me to be the sort of question that we should be asking.
I happen to believe—putting it perhaps rather over-simply—in the primacy of the Kingdom. I happen to believe that the Church is a means to an end and very much not an end in itself. I also happen to believe that the trouble with the Church over the years is that it has forgotten that it is a means to an end, that it has so often felt that it is an end in itself, and that in the process it has become institutionalised to the nth degree.
Involved in that process of institutionisation is the institutionalisation of the parish and of the ministry. When we think about the parish, we have to distinguish between two things. We have to distinguish between, on the one hand, the principles on which the parochial system is based, and, on the other hand, the particular form which the parish system happens to take. I am very pro the parochial system in the first of those meanings, in the sense that I believe that the basic principle on which the parochial system is founded is that the Church and the Christian faith are concerned with every soul, with every person, no matter what label may happen to be put upon a person.
We were concerned in the parish in which I served in Sheffield with more than 14,000 souls, and when we regularly visited, as we did, each of the general hospitals in Sheffield every week, we looked in the admission book only for for the address of the patient. We did not bother to look in the column marked "Religion", in which people were put down as C. of E., Methodist, Baptist, Hindu, or whatever it was. We felt that we had a duty towards 14,000 souls who happened to live within the parish of St.
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Mary, Bramhall Lane, Sheffield. That was the school in which I was, so to speak, brought up as a young clergyman.
The parish, then, enshrines the parochial system and is based on the principle that we are concerned with all souls. Indeed, I would extend that to say that we are rightly concerned with the interrelationship of those souls and, indeed, with every aspect of human life.
In that sense I am very much in favour of the parish idea, but I think that we have to distinguish between that and the parish system as it operates. I believe that the idea of splitting the country into a series of geographically delineated units was a very appropriate way in which to work out that basic principle in, say, mediaeval society, in which there was a very settled population. People did not move around. They lived, worked and died very much within a geographically defined area. That system was very appropriate then, but we do not live in the mediaeval age. Life has moved on since then.
We live in an age which is organised as much on functional as on geographical lines. People work in an industry or are involved in education, or whatever it may be, and they move around. It seems to me, therefore, that the Church must take account of the way in which society has altered, and that we need to re-interpret the parochial principle in new ways. I believe that the parochial system, if I may so call it—the series of geographically delineated parishes—has to a considerable extent outlived its usefulness. If we resist the Measure, I believe that we shall be resisting part of a change in the structures of the Church in a direction which would enable the Church better to fulfil its true function in the world as it now is in the latter part of the twentieth century.
We have heard a number of objections to the Measure. One of the basic objections has been about breaking trust or breaking faith with past benefactors. But if we are forbidden to change the use to which benefactions were given in the past, we are in very grave danger of becoming completely ossified. We shall not be able to change at all, or we shall be able to change only in an extremely slow and almost imperceptible way.
But there is perhaps a more important point. When we talk about breaking

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faith or breaking trust with past benefactors, are we not looking at the matter in a very narrow way? It may be that by breaking trust with them, in the narrower sense of the term, we may be fulfilling a much higher trust.
After all, they gave their benefactions in the past at a time when society was organised in a certain way, when certain views were held, and so on. But times have moved on, and if we are to fulfil the real trust—their trust in giving their money to the Church so that the Church would be able to fulfil its function in this or any future age—it seems to me that we shall do so by fulfilling a much higher trust than the smaller and narrower trust about which certain hon. Members have been talking today.
Another point which has been made concerns the discouragement of people from being benefactors in future. That makes me very sad. If people are prepared to give money only because it is going to a particular parish, their concept of Christianity, of the Church, and of the true meaning of the word "Catholic" is somewhat wanting. I hate to make judgment of my fellow citizens, Christians and members of the Anglican Church, but I feel bound to say that.
I have a considerable sympathy with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and the hon. Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) about the independence of the clergy. I suppose that, to make a pendantic point, we are not discussing the freehold, although the two matters are to a certain extent clearly inter-related, and I take that point. The only point I should make in reply is an observation from my own experience.
I spent most of my time in the full-time ministry of the Church in industrial mission. The Anglican clergy who are now involved in industrial mission—very few of them have freeholds—are an independent, rebellious and, incidentally, very able bunch. Some of the most able ministers of the Church of England are in industrial missions, but perhaps I am biased about that. The fact is that they are an independent-minded bunch, and the great majority of them do not enjoy the benefit of the freehold.
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I do not want to get involved in an argument about the freehold, but the principle behind the freehold—that the priest should have this element of independence—is absolutely right. We must not only defend that principle but see how we can reintepret the independence—the freehold—in modern terms. That is the challenge which we must face.
I do not regard this Measure as world-shattering. To be honest, I am not terribly worked up about the question of structures, institutions, and so on. But I think that this Measure will be of some help, and I shall support it.
7.34 p.m.
Mr. Peter Mills: I always feel that debates such as this are fascinating, because most of us are good friends, but we seem to disagree strongly about these matters. A real debate is taking place tonight. That is sometimes a little unusual in this House. We disagree about various matters across the Floor of the House. Indeed, the hon. Member for Luton, East (Mr. Clemitson) made an important contribution, because he spoke from experience in these matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn) said that whether people give money to the Church in future depends. That was a sad remark to make. Surely people give money to the Church, to God, to the extension of the Kingdom. They do not give for a particular thing. When people give, it must be for the benefit of the whole Church. Looking back to the early Church, in the Book of Acts we see that they give, not to a little parish, but to the cause—the extension of the Kingdom. Surely that is what we should be doing.
Dr. Glyn: People may feel attached to a particular church where they may have worshipped for many years and had tremendous spiritual advantages and therefore feel an obligation towards it. It is not unchristian to devote money in the way of a trust fund specifically to that church in return for something which they have received. I think that is reasonable.
Mr. Mills: I do not disagree with my hon. Friend, but he said more than that. In fact, he said whether they will give money in future depends. With respect,

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I cannot agree with that. I hope that my hon. Friend will understand.
This is a disturbing Measure. I make no bones about saying that the need for it indicates the difficulties that the Church of England is in. It disturbs me because, whether we agree or disagree with it, we must agree that there is unfairness in it. It is not often that I sit on the fence or am undecided about a matter, but I tend to be about this Measure. The arguments on both sides are important and valid.
It is interesting that people are responding very strongly to this Measure. I had a letter recently from a small church at Stowford in my constituency saying:
"We feel that it is particularly unseemly for the Church to be doing this which is tantamount to breaking first the tenth and then the eighth commandments."
I do not quite see how that comes in, but that is how strongly people feel about this Measure. I also had a church magazine sent to me in which somebody wrote:
"If this Measure goes through it will be, I believe, one of the final nails in the coffin of our spiritual life. The clergy will be taken away, the rectories sold. The Church will have retreated in the face of Satan."
It is extraordinary that people have not thought out and looked at this Measure more carefully than that.
On the other hand, people have written to me strongly supporting this Measure. They believe that it will be of great benefit to the Church as a whole. That is important. They point out that the Synod passed it overwhelmingly. I have been critical of the Synod. I was a member of the Synod and of the Church Assembly in the House of Laity. I came out of it. If people criticise the Synod, they should work hard to see that the right people represent them there and they should have faith in them, just as I hope they have faith in us here. It does not carry much weight with me when people say "The Synod does not represent the people." It certainly should. If the members of the Synod do not go back to their areas or rural deaneries to report on and explain what is happening, the fault lies with them.
Considering the disadvantages, I agree with hon. Members who have spoken against the Measure regarding the word "flexibility." Mention is made of a
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greater flexibility in the use of available resources. That can cover a multitude of sins. The excuse that it will be more flexible can hide many serious problems and many things that are wrong.
Flexibility is the excuse for changes which are not always justified or fair. One sees this in industry and perhaps even in politics. I do not think that the Church should be in the same area as industry in these matters. The Church must be very careful about introducing provisions in the interests of flexibility, because the Church is not a company or a political party. It has its grass roots to maintain, and that is very important.
The reason why I am unhappy about the Measure is that one of the dangers that I see is that the Church is moving towards something like a business operation, whereby people are put here and there. I do not think that that is in the interests of the Church in the long run.
Many people feel that the pooling of resources is a disadvantage. They fear further centralisation. They fear that power will begin to concentrate at the diocesan level more and more. If that happens, it will be a pity.
Speaking as a countryman I believe that there is some merit in the country parson having an interest in agriculture and in glebe land, because most of his support in the parish comes from people who are concerned with rural matters. It is not a bad thing to say to parsons, as I have said, "It is a good thing that you have a bit of glebe. You know the problems facing certain people." They do not then make stupid statements in their sermons at harvest festivals and on similar occasions. There is a very good argument for rural parsons having some connection with the land.
Those are some of the disadvantages in this Measure. However, the advantages are obvious. The Church needs more resources in certain areas. There is no doubt that urban areas and housing estates need extra help, in finance and in every other way, in the difficult circumstances in which the Church finds itself. I wish that it were not so. I believe that we must try to channel our resources to where the need is greatest.
The Church needs to pay its clergy adequately. The present state of affairs

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is a scandal. The scandal really comes from the Church members themselves. It is the Church members who should see, if they really believe in the business of having a Church of faith and seeking to extend the Kingdom, that the finances exist. They should say "It is our responsibility and the scandal rests on our shoulders." It is very sad to see so many clergy, particularly curates, in the difficulties that they are experiencing.
The Church also needs to get the best out of its assets. In a way, this Measure may well help in that direction, because some glebe land just does not provide a good return. Perhaps I may explain that. It is extremely difficult for a parson in a rural area letting his glebe land, his grass, to drive a very hard bargain. After all, it may be that the church warden is the man from whom he is trying to get the most for the sale of the grass from his glebe. Therefore, there is a problem here. Not all glebe land has realised the best that it could get for the resources of the Church.
There is also a plus from this Measure, It is a Christian principle of sharing one's money, one's time and one's talents. If one looks at the Book of Acts and at the early Church, one can appreciate that its members did just that. They helped, shared, pooled and supported. When the early Church spread abroad into other parts of the then known world, it did not bring in a kind of legislation to force these things through. Its members were prepared to pool their resources. There was an urgent appeal and money was given to help certain areas.
There are advantages. There are disadvantages. The important thing is to ask who will actually administer the glebe. That question worries me considerably. I do not believe that the members of the Board of Finance are the best qualified people to deal with this matter. We need some land agent or someone else who understands the letting of glebe land. I do not believe that the board of finance is the best body to do all this. Does it have the expertise and the local knowledge?
In a strange way, to many of my constituents Exeter, where the diocesan headquarters is situated, is a very long way away. My constituents will be asking me "Do the people in Exeter know the diffi-
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culties and problems concerning this land 60 miles away?" Therefore, I suggest to the Church of England that this ought to be done at a far more local level. Perhaps the rural deaneries ought to do this rather than a somewhat remote diocesan board of finance.
I am also interested in the business of a voluntary scheme. Obviously it would be much better if this could be extended. It is clearly working at present. One would have liked to see its extension. I have not heard any argument about why we have not proceeded on that basis. I should have thought that that would be helpful.
To sum up, therefore, I am not happy about the Measure. At present I feel that I shall probably vote for the Measure, but only just. I am somewhat swayed by the argument that at present the pooling of resources, as it were, by the Church Commissioners, from which everyone benefits, already shows that even the smallest parish is getting some aid from pooled resources. That just slightly tips the balance at present to lead me to support the Measure. However, I am still waiting to make up my mind finally, and that may well depend on those who wind up the debate.
7.49 p.m.
Mr. John Cope: This has been a very interesting debate. I have certainly found it very difficult to decide which way to vote. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills), I have not finally made up my mind which way to vote. Like him, I have also received a very great number of letters on this subject. It is difficult to think of any other subject on which I have had as many letters in the last few months.
As the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Walker) knows, in our area we share a local paper in which there has been considerable correspondence on this subject. The main reservation that has been expressed both in letters to me and in the correspondence columns of that newspaper is that the Measure will be used as a lever to amalgamate parishes and to abolish existing parishes and benefices.
When I first started to look at this Measure it seemed that the powers to do what it requires already exist. Most of

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this Measure is based on the Pastoral Measure, and so on, but, even looking at the financial side of it, one sees great powers to cream off surplus income as well as power to make up the income. All these powers are used, and there are many statistics about them in the appendices to the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee.
I agree that pastoral reform is necessary. It is true that parishes change I was brought up in a parish of about 12,000 people, but there are parishes in my constituency with only a few hundred members. I do not think anybody would deny that the process has to go on to a certain extent, but the power to do that seems to exist already.
I shall not quote the exact words of the Right Reverend Bishop of London in the other place, because of the discussion earlier. The hon. Member for Kingswood quoted his Lordship in support of the view that the possession of endowments by a particular parish was irrelevant to decisions that were taken on pastoral reorganisation and that one need not bother about this Measure in that context. That is all very well, but it seems to me that at least some of the time the proposers of the Measure want to have it the other way round. The first page of the report by the Synod's Legislative Committee sets out the purpose of the Measure as it sees it. It says that it is necessary so that the Church may be
"freer to direct its resources to pay the men where they are so deployed."
Much of the debate has been about that. We have heard about how poorly some of the clergy are paid, particularly the curates, and I support all that was said about that, but this Measure cannot be advanced on the ground that it will somehow enable money to be sorted out more evenly, that is if we are to believe the Bishop of London that it will have no effect at all on pastoral reorganisation. I do not think that the supporters of the Measure can have it both ways.
It has been said that no clergyman will be worse off, and that is referring in effect to the annuities. What bothers people is not that existing incumbents will be no worse off but that some of the parishes may in due course be worse off as a result of this Measure.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is not the claim that no clergyman will be worse off bound to be wrong? As inflation progresses the glebe income and in some cases the endowment income will tend to increase, whereas the Measure merely guarantees that the incumbent will not receive less money in the future. In other words, his income will be pegged, whereas without this Measure it would not he so dealt with, which does not substantiate the claim that he will not be worse off.
Mr. Cope: That is a shrewd point, with which I am tempted to agree. On the face of it, what my hon. Friend has said seems to be correct. I notice in passing that it was the clergy who were consulted about this, and not the PCCs. It is the clergy who it is said will be no worse off, and it is said that the parishes may be worse off. The seems to be—sinister is putting it rather strongly—relevant. I have not finally decided which way to vote. I await with interest my hon. Friend's speech concluding the debate, and I shall base my vote on that. But I must say that a present I dislike the Measure itself.
I should like to spend a few minutes discussing the issue that was raised at the start of the debate by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), whether we ought properly in this House to use our veto or whether we should be inhibited in doing so. My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham) said that it would be ineffective for this House to use its veto; that when this House had tried to exercise its will over the Church it had been ineffective. That may he so, but that does not convince me that we should ignore our duty to come to a decision on this matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Cross has been quoted as saying that we should only rarely and with strong reason use our veto over the legislation. I think that he phrased it a little strongly, but I believe that the Synod has a right to have its views carefully considered. The Synod also has another right. It is one that we have in this House and claim at the beginning of every Session. Mr. Speaker goes to claim from the Sovereign the right that a favourable construction shall be put upon our words. The Sovereign is in a similar position, having a veto over our legislation, but that power has not

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been used for many years. The Synod has the right to have a favourable construction put upon its words but, still giving the Synod a fair wind, there seem to be two other stumbling blocks.
The first of those is the question of the breaking of old trusts. I do not take the total view that no old trusts should ever be broken. That view has been expressed a little strongly by some people. It happens that my uncle was at one stage the churchwarden of a church that had a window for which a sum of money had been left for its upkeep. The money was much more than sufficient after a while for the upkeep of the window and the sum involved tended to pile up. When the war broke out some of the money was used to bury the window, and then the church was destroyed by bombs. As a result, for some years my uncle was the churchwarden of a crate with a lot of glass and some money. Eventually, by a complicated process, the trust that tied those concerned to this crate was unravelled, but things were difficult for a while. That is perhaps not a normal example of the way in which trusts can get out of date but it does seem to illustrate the point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Melton quoted speeches made in this House 100 or more years ago, but it seems to me that those speeches were dealing with the much more extreme cases of over-provision of income and of old trusts than we have to deal with in this piece of legislation. In any case, ways of dealing with that problem are already provided under the Pastoral Measure and other means.
It seems relevant that the authorities of the Church, as far as I can detect, are the only bodies which can break trusts in their own favour. Other people can break trusts by going through the Church Commissioners and so on, but the Church itself, and the Church authorities, can break trusts in their own favour. That is a power which we should rarely dispense and extend and this Measure extends that power to the Church authorities.
I come back to the point which has already been made about the low pay of the clergy. The one point that would strongly recommend this Measure to me would be if I thought that it would lead
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to the improved management of the Church's assets in total and, therefore, make a real difference to the problems in some of the urban parishes as well as to the problem of the Church not paying its clergy sufficiently.
As I understand it, the sections dealing with financial monetary endowment do not make any difference to the management of the money. It will still be managed by the Church Commissioners as it has been. Where this does make a difference is in the management of the glebe. It is proposed that the glebe should be managed by diocesan authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West asked whether the Diocesan Board of Finance was actually due to manage the glebe. As I understand it, from Clause 19 of the Measure, the Diocesan Board of Finance is given overall control but it is supposed to prepare a scheme, which the Commissioners have got to approve
"which makes provision as to the persons by whom and the manner in which the diocesan glebe land of the diocese is to be managed".
I take it that there will, in effect, be a sub-committee, with land agents and so on, involved in the management of the land which will do the actual running. I have been sent a copy of a letter which has been written to the Gloucester diocesan authorities by a firm of chartered surveyors and land agents which has been responsible for the management and advice on glebe land in the diocese over a number of years on behalf both of the diocese and also of individual incumbents. The nub of a long letter, which makes a number of detailed points in support of this, states:
"It is our considered opinion, however, based on our professional experience, that in most cases of management with which we have dealt, there is considerable room for improvement and that the present system whereby it is up to the Incumbent to instigate proceedings for revision of rents, etc., does not lead to an overall policy of efficient Estate Management which can operate successfully."
Among the detailed points made is the fact that the law on these matters is now very complex—as we know in this House when we try to deal with it—and that a person who is not expert in these matters can often make mistakes as a result of the law on agricultural tenancies, and land with grass keep, which can result in income being lost. That is a

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powerful argument in favour of the diocesan management of glebe land, but it does not necessarily mean that it is an argument for this Measure.
To my mind it is an even stronger argument for the voluntary scheme of glebe management to which the hon. Member for Kingswood referred. Personally, I do not like the idea of the compulsion. I still have a considerable number of reservations about the Measure and I look forward to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) who is to wind up the debate.
8.5 p.m.
Mr. Robert Boscawen: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Cope) I have not made up my mind on this issue. However, I recognise that it is a serious matter for the Church of England to ask Parliament to change the law. But changes are going on in the outside world which we have to recognise. They are changes which the Church of England is trying to recognise.
I cannot say that I welcome the Measure or the changes, but I recognise that they are worthy and the arguments put against the Measure have to be considered carefully. We should disregard some of the emotive language which has been used tonight and consider the main arguments.
I would dismiss the argument about lack of consultation. There may have been lack of consultation in some places, but certainly not in all. If there has been such a lack of consultation that, to some extent, reflects on the members of the Church who have perhaps not taken the trouble that they should have taken in this respect.
The real argument relates to the breach of trusts and the violation of wills so as to take from individuals of past years their undoubted rights and beliefs. This argument has to be met head on. I do not accept that, because an asset was given a long time ago, and has not been used well, that in itself is a good reason for taking it away. On the other hand, there is an argument to suggest that if the Church is not using its assets properly, it is bound to make those individuals who wish to help the Church
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less inclined to do so. That is one of the reasons why people are apt to say "They cannot look after their own glebe or land. Why should I come to their rescue?". That is a consideration that to a certain extent weighs with me.
The question of compulsion is an important issue. I do not like the idea of the Church asking Parliament to compel incumbents to release their glebe land and their assets. I do not like that for many reasons which go far wider than this Measure. Nevertheless, one has to face up to the fact that reality is compelling the mergers of parishes and compelling the Church authorities to find other measures for filling vacancies in certain areas.
In many areas, including those I represent, that is often a difficult thing to do. Stipends have been far too low for far too long. If this Measure will do something about that and can be shown to do something about it, I feel that it needs to be commended on that ground.
I should like my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), who will wind up, to answer that question absolutely squarely. Does this Measure, by compelling incumbents to release their holdings of glebe land, make sufficient difference to the stipends of incumbents throughout the whole Church? That is an absolutely crucial issue. If it does not, and if it cannot be shown to do so. I shall be reluctant to ask Parliament to support the compulsion of the surrendering of these ancient holdings.
Lastly, should Parliament overturn the long-considered Measures of the Church authority now vested in Synod? Synod's views should not be dismissed too readily. It consists of individuals who have taken a great deal of time and trouble to produce this Measure in a disinterested way, to try to help the Church as a whole. I am reluctant to dismiss all that hard work on the ground that we are breaching trusts made many years ago.
It is difficult to decide what is the right thing to do about this Measure. In the end I feel that I want to ensure that the Church gets the resources necessary to ensure a good, worthwhile and active ministry. I want very much to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham has to say.
8.11 p.m.
Mr. John Ryman: I had not intended to speak in this debate. I am prompted to do so to mention three subjects after having listened to some of the good speeches which have been made. If the quality of debate on political subjects were as high as we have heard tonight, it would be a far better thing.
The first thing about which I am terribly anxious—I too have not made up my mind how to vote on this matter—is the deplorable condition of the standard of livelihood of many clergy in my constituency and elsewhere. Will this Measure increase the sums available for their stipends? That is a matter of mathematical calculation and the House is entitled to a precise answer of approximately what benefits will be derived.
Any form of restructuring or reform which would have a substantial benefit for the pay of the clergy I would certainly support, but if this is to be piecemeal innovation and tinkering, if there will be no substantial benefit to the stipend of the clergy, that would remove an overwhelming argument for supporting it.
I have been appalled by the standard of living of some of the clergy, who work fantastic hours, sometimes in appalling conditions. We spend our time anxiously voting on behalf of many underprivileged and minority groups, but I have seldom heard an effective campaign getting on its feet on behalf of the underprivileged clergy and their families, who suffer deeply today in ways which many other sections of the community do not. I should like information on that matter.
My second point relates to the criticism of property management generally by the Church Commissioners, the way in which they have administered Church property, and other related matters. I would endorse that criticism, from my experience of dealing with them. In connection with planning inquiries and ordinary litigation in the course of landlord and tenant matters—leaseholders attempting to purchase freehold and so on—my experience is that they behave scandalously. Many times in my recollection over the last 15 or 20 years, they have exhibited the sort of attitude on humanitarian grounds that one expects from the worst possible kind of property dealers. I therefore agree with those hon. Members who have spoken in scathing
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terms about the behaviour of the Church Commissioners in the organisation of property.
My third point is trifling and perhaps of only technical importance. I have never seen this Measure before in my life, but looking at it tonight, I find in the definition clause, Clause 45 on page 29, some extraordinary language. I am reminded of a section in one of the law of property Acts which defines a short lease as follows:
"A short lease is a lease which is not a long lease."
In Clause 45, we read that the appointed day is the day appointed under Clause 49(2), that "the Commissioners" means "the Church Commissioners". That gives legitimate grounds for criticising some of the language employed by the draftsmen of the Bill.
I make these points for a serious purpose. Never has the country required spiritual leadership more than it does now. If I wanted advice on a constituency problem of a general nature, I would much rather talk to my local clergy or my local bishop than to a Minister of the Crown. I get far more sensible and constructive advice from them on general policy matters.
I have a jolly good local bishop in my constituency. I was dining with him last week. I find his views on unemployment, inflation, housing and social questions far more helpful in my constituency work than the views of the loftiest Cabinet Ministers in the land.
Mr. Stephen Ross: Would the hon. Gentleman confirm or deny that his bishop supports this Measure?
Mr. Ryman: I did not ask him. I dined with him last Thursday. He is one of the most eminent bishops in the land—the Bishop of Newcastle, who is due to take his seat in the House of Lords next month, I think. My point is that his views on many constituency problems are far more refreshing and useful than the sort of advice hon. Members get from other sorts of people. I do not know whether he supports this Measure. I specifically did not ask him.
These are serious questions. Will the clergy's stipend benefit? Will the Measure be tidied up? Cannot something be done

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about the disgraceful way in which the Church Commissioners administer Church property?
8.18 p.m.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: The question has been raised several times in this interesting debate whether Parliament has more than a merely formal function in the consideration of Measures. There are two types of Measure which I discern in this context. There are Measures which the Church authorities offer us not because they involve changes in the public general law but because the status of the Church of England as the established Church means that it cannot regulate internally matters which, say, the Roman Catholic Church or the Baptist Church would be able to regulate. There might be a case—although I would not be one to take that view—for saying that Parliament should be more reticent in intervening in such matters.
The second class of Measure comprises those which alter the public general law and without which the Church authorities would not be able to do what they want to do unless there were an alteration in the public general law which would give similar powers to bodies outside the Church of England.
It is clear that this Measure falls into the second category. It does not fall into the category of things that the Baptist Church or the Roman Catholic Church could do for themselves without the consent of the House. Trust breaking involves a change in the public general law, so Parliament has a specific function and duty in that regard.
Secondly, it might be asked, is not the duty of Parliament itself a formal one because there is, after all, the Ecclesiastical Committee to act as some sort of filter, as it might be claimed? But what sort of filter? To start with, it is the sort of filter which refuses to hear Members of Parliament who wish to give evidence to it, in contrast to stating their views on the Floor of the House.
Indeed, in justification for so refusing, in paragraph 4 on page 4 of its report the Ecclesiastical Committee says:
"The Committee also had regard to the opportunity which a Member of either House has of putting his views to Parliament at a later stage."
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Therefore, it is clear that the Ecclesiastical Committee takes the view that it is proper and meaningful for Members to advance such arguments as they wish to advance for or against a Measure, not to the Ecclesiastical Committee but to their colleagues on the Floor of the House of Commons. That would be a meaningless task if it did not lead to a decision either to accept the Measure or to reject it.
I mention that because many people outside the House, including some clergy, are unaware that the House has no power whatever to amend a single word of any Measure. It can only allow it to go forward for Her Majesty's approbation or recommend that it be referred back.
It is necessary, therefore, that we make a judgment on the Measure as it is—not a judgment on balance, but a judgment that every part of it is acceptable. If there is any part of it which is not acceptable, the proper course is for the House to refer it back for the excision or alteration of the part which is unacceptable.
I offer that thought because a number of hon. Gentlemen have presented to the House their conviction that parts of the Measure are admirable and other parts of the Measure are harmful or undesirable. Any hon. Member who holds that view should decide to seek to refer the matter back to the only body which has power to amend it which is, of course, the Synod.
That must be the proper course where, to take a not inappropriate analogy, the Measure turns out to be a curate's egg. The curate was able to extract the parts of the egg that met with his approbation and to reject the parts that did not. That is not a privilege extended to the House of Commons when it turns its consideration to a Measure such as this.
It has been argued that there may be an advantage in efficiency in transferring the administration, first of endowment funds and, secondly, of glebes to a body other than the local beneficed clergyman, or such other trustees as there may be, to the Church Commissioners in the first place and then to various diocesan boards. This is an argument that in no way is connected or adjoined to arguments about redistributing the income which arises thereafter. It is perfectly possible to take

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the view that professional management would result in greater income without imposing compulsory reallocation of the income in breach of the trusts.
This is a very important point indeed, because I refer to my earlier observation that, if there are parts of this Measure of great merit and other parts of great disadvantage or inequity, our clear duty is to send it back for the excision or amendment of those parts that we find unacceptable in order that it may come forward again including those parts that we find commendable. That is the answer to the dilemma of any hon. Member such as myself who finds many parts of the Measure commendable but some parts of it not so.
I look with something more than distaste at the manner in which those who drew up the Measure endeavoured to escape from the dilemma of, first, bad faith and, secondly, a lure for the future. They endeavoured to escape from it by saying "Dead people are not in a position to leave us any more money. Therefore, we shall expropriate their bequests. However, live people and people to come in the future are in a position to bequeath or give us money and they might not do so if the trust that they make will prove ineffective. Therefore, we shall insert Clause 14 to reassure potential benefactors and those to come in the future that we shall not treat those gifts or bequests in the same way as we hope to treat gifts or bequests of those safely beneath the sod."
I do not find that a morally or ethically attractive escape from the dilemma. I find it what it is—an extremely unattractive device; and I am surprised that such a device should find its way into a Measure which the House is invited to approve. Indeed, I am tempted to wonder whether many of the clergy who voted for the Measure in toto were aware in this respect of what it was that they were doing.
As I read Clause 14, it entrusts the financial management of future bequests or gifts by way of a devise to the Church Commissioners and, through them, to the Diocesan Board of Finance, but the benefit will remain due to the object of the trust. That is what many of us would
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wish to see, not just for the future but for the past as well.
I have in mind the case where there is a proven case for professional management. I enter that caveat because professional management generally costs money, so that even if the gross income may be increased, whether or not the net income is increased depends upon how much gets lost on the way by way of management costs. Many of us believe that where there is a proven case for professional management it should be transferred to the Diocesan Board of Finance without prejudice to the provisions for which the income is intended.
I am much seized of the point that it is distasteful for a person, particularly at a time of inflation, to go round as a rent negotiator and collector. That puts him in a distasteful position and, of course, he has a duty not just to himself but to those who come after him. One must remember that he may die tomorrow. I can see many reasons for wishing that the management of glebe, in that respect, should be transferred to a body which is at least one removed. The arguments for that are compelling.
In an intervention I said that the claim that no existing beneficed clergymen in receipt of an endowment will suffer is entirely spurious. It depends on two assumptions, neither of which is true. The first is that the rate of inflation in the foreseeable future will be zero and the second is that the income from the endowment will remain static. Both of those assumptions are possible but not probable. In the event that inflation will progress—a highly probable event—the purchasing power of the incumbent will tall pro rata and, therefore, if his income is fixed his purchasing power will decline. But, as the yield from the endowment increases, as it will if prudently invested, the incumbent will be deprived of that. I am not speaking of his receiving an additional advantage over his fellow parsons but about monetary income increasing pari passu with the rate of inflation so that his total purchasing power is retained. Misconceptions of that kind can be and have been spread, albeit totally unwittingly.
We must come to a number of judgments. Does the totality of the Measure constitute an expedient thing to do? The Ecclesiastical Committee is charged with

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making that judgment about expediency and also about its effect on Her Maejsty's subjects. It is not charged with making a political, moral or even ethical judgment. It performs a useful function to the House but it performs a less useful function than it would if it did not refuse to hear hon. Members who wish to give evidence to it. However, within the limitations which it chooses to impose upon itself it performs a useful though limited function.
The final decision rests with the House, and subject to what I hear during the remainder of the debate, I think that I shall feel compelled to vote against the Measure, not because there are no provisions in it which I find commendable but because it could be improved by sending it back for excision of those parts which I find morally repugnant. If the Synod is to have the courage of the convictions in Clauses 1 and 2, it must leave out Clause 14. That is something which this House cannot do. It can be done by the Synod only if either the mover of the motion withdraws it so that the Measure can go back to the Synod or if this House, with a heavy heart, votes for it to be referred back. That means voting in the "No" Lobby.
8.34 p.m.
Mr. Patrick Mayhew: The Measure has brought with it problems of extraordinary difficulty which have been reflected in today's speeches. I take up the argument expressed by more than one speaker from this side and in particular by my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean). We should be particularly careful before we take a decision to reverse a recommendation of the General Synod, because that may ultimately lead to a breach between the Synod and this House.
We should not approach in a lighthearted way the possibility of disagreeing with the Synod, but we should not be deterred from rejecting something that we conscientiously believe to be wrong merely because it happens to have passed the Synod and the Ecclesiastical Committee. It is not much more than a year ago that we rejected. I believe for the first time since 1928, a Measure that came up by that route—the Incumbents (Vacation of Benefices) Measure—because it was found by a majority in this House to contain such serious blemishes that it could not find its way
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properly on to the statute book. I believe that we did a good service then, because I understand that the Synod took the matter back and that the Measure is shortly to come before the House greatly improved and meeting the objections we raised then. Therefore, we approach the matter solemnly but with no undue diffidence.
The real question seems to be whether we have any right to authorise the diversion of funds contributed for a specific charitable purpose, perhaps many years ago but perhaps, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) instanced from his own experience, only 10 or 20 years ago. Has the Church that right?
Before one comes to a conclusion on that question one must examine the possible intentions of the benefactor, but always realising that one can do no more than to make an intelligent guess at them. The benefactor may really have wished to benefit simply Church purposes, or he may have meant what he said when he expressed his benefaction to be in favour of a particular church or a particular incumbent.
I find in the Measure much with which I am sympathetic, but I want to take up what my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) has just said and to follow him at any rate in that regard, although I hope that he will forgive me if I do not follow him closely in other aspects of his speech. If one is asked what was the intention of those benefactors whose charitable funds it is now sought to divert, one must reply that it was undoubtedly their intention in every case to make a benefaction to the locality in question, and that probably they had it in mind to ensure that that locality had a parson for the future, or, perhaps more often, that it should have a good parson because the benefaction would make it a more attractive benefice.
If the benefactors were asked when they made their benefaction whether they would mind their funds being centrally pooled, they would almost certainly say "Yes, we mind very much." But it is idle to speculate as to what they would say today, confronted with the enormous changes that have overtaken the Church and the country as a whole in the years, and in many cases the centuries, since their bequests were made. Some might

1023
say "Of course, pool the money." But others might equally firmly say " Don't you dare touch it."
Therefore, we must approach the question whether we are entitled to divert these funds on the footing that the Measure may well seek to achieve what, even today, would be contrary to the wishes of those who charitably put up the money. It should be approved only if such a flouting of the benefactors' wishes can be justified.
Here it is perhaps legitimate to interpose one or two sentences to point out how this shows the value of what to many people seems to be a curious if not an illogical feature of our system, that this House retains a right of surveillance over Church legislation. If that right did not exist, the Church Commissioners, the authorities of the Church, might very well find themselves in the position of being able in their own interests to change the law affecting the funds of the constituent churches and might very well be able to write a cheque on somebody else's bank account in their own favour. As we know, this is a privilege which is unique to Members of Parliament, and it is, indeed, a melancholy privilege. It should not be shared if, indeed, it should even survive.
As with the Methodist Church Bill, which we discussed recently, there are very good reasons why the House of Commons should retain the right of surveillance, even though it contains many hon. Members who are members of neither the Anglican nor Methodist Churches. Some have allegiance to no church at all. But my experience is that on the occasions when we debate them, church matters receive very conscientious attention.
There are certain circumstances in which there is a justification for diverting funds, albeit that the benefactor's purpose was to benefit a certain locality. Each benefactor intends that the money should benefit the holder of the priesthood in a particular parish, or those who have responsibility for maintaining the church in that locality.
But take away the Church of England and there ceases to be a supply of priests. Take away the priests and there ceases to be a use for the edifice of the church
1024
which the benefactor envisaged. If one acknowledges this, it is but a short and logical step to recognise that there may be circumstances in which the Church of England may properly claim to come between a benefactor and the specific local object of the endowment which he has made.
In a speech which I much admired, my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham) gave many instances of this House intervening for that purpose, some of which went back as far as 1833.
That being so, it does not justify this Measure automatically. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton, who said that we must take account of the fact that we are unable to amend this Measure. The onus is on those who have brought it forward to get it absolutely right.
If we are to dismantle the basis on which the Church has been endowed for 500 years or more, another six months is neither here nor there as the price of getting it right. We should not be rushed into it just because there would be some inconvenience. It is no slight upon the efforts of those who work voluntarily in trying to govern the Church if this House chooses to delay the Measure.
We must look at this in the light of the tremendous decline in the number of priests over the past 10 to 20 years. This situation will get worse, probably fairly shortly. Also, bishops must deploy their diminishing clergy as they think right in the light of new urban developments.
I am aware of the very important circumstances surrounding this Measure, but we cannot look lightly at the results it might have. We face the prospect of somebody, having recently made an endowment for a specific church with the ilntention that the moneys should go to that specific object, finding that the endowment has been diverted and pooled into the whole of the Church of England's finances.
That is what is offensive to me. I agree, that I have no answer to those who ask where the line should logically be drawn, I am prepared to see this happen in a proper case, in the instance of an old benefaction, where there have been substantial changes in the position of the church or the status of the parish which that church services since the benefaction

1025
was made. I cannot say that a logical line should be drawn here. I believe that it is possible in most instances to judge on which side of the line right falls.
It is because this Measure is absolutely universal in its retrospective operation that I am not able to vote for it. It is certainly an oddity, as the Ecclesiastical Committee pointed out, that the Measure is not prospective in its operation. As a rule, we are against the principle of retrospective legislation in this House. It is new to me to find legislation which is determinedly retrospective and which refuses to be prospective in its operation.
I make clear that I do not want to see all future endowments caught in this way. I want to see a distinction drawn between the recent endowment and the type spoken of by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington, the ancient endowments made in circumstances which have materially changed and for the benefit of churches in parishes whose circumstances have also changed. I want to see some provision made for flexibility in the operation of this Measure.
It is for that reason that, although I sympathise with many of the objectives of this Measure, I want it to go back and to come before this House once again, if the Synod and the Ecclesiastical Committee think it right, in a more flexible form, able to meet the objections I have expressed.
8.47 p.m.
Mr. Eric Ogden: I ask the hon. and learned Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) and the House to acquit me of any apparent discourtesy in that I arrived in the Chamber at about 8.30 p.m., having missed the major part of the debate and now attempt to intervene, even briefly. That is not my usual practice.
The hon. and learned Member was referring to the difference between ancient and recent endowments. I learned this weekend that in my constituency of West Derby—the old Hundred of West Derby—the rector of the parish church of St. Mary receives annually £3·39 from Henry VIII. I hesitate to suggest what purpose Henry VIII had in mind in making any money available to the North-West of England or what he might think about this Measure. The endowments in that part of the world go back a long time.
1026
The City of Liverpool grew from the old Hundred of West Derby and this Measure will have an important effect on it.
There are two points which my Anglican friends in my constituency have asked me to try to make tonight. In this I think I can speak as a representative in a narrow sense rather than adopting the normal rôle of a Member of Parliament. If this Measure had come 10 years ago, or even five years ago, the opposition to it would have been much greater than it is, because the salary differentials for priests have very much narrowed. Those whose parishes were reasonably well endowed have held their own while the other less fortunate members of the clergy have had further increases. One point not covered by this Measure, which was a burning topic in West Derby, was the fixing of ground rents. There has been little change in these in 30 years and their value has been eroded by inflation.
The general view of the clergy in Liverpool is that this will be a reasonable Measure if it can embody in its operation some of the flexibility of which the hon. and learned Member spoke. If it is harshly interpreted in an area and its provisions brought in regardless of local conditions, without tact or thought, there will be great resistance to it.
My message from West Derby is that this Measure will cause few difficulties and do more good than harm. On that basis, as a representative in this narrow sense, I am asked to give my support to the Measure.
8.50 p.m.
Mr. William van Straubenzee: I am certain that I shall have the sympathy of the whole House in winding up a debate the quality of which has been of a quite exceptional character. Like other hon. Members, I acknowledge gratefully the great thought and care given to the speeches of every hon. Member. I also gratefully acknowledge, as other hon. Members have, that the managers of Government business have been generous in their allocation of time and have enabled us to have a leisured but certainly not unduly drawn out discussion on a matter which is plainly giving difficulty to many hon. Members.

1027
I calculate that 21 hon. Members have spoken, and I think it will be agreed that a debate beginning just after 4 o'clock and concluding a few minutes after 9 o'clock is not at all unreasonable for matters of this kind. I also join with many other hon. Members in extending respectful congratulations to the Second Church Estates Commissioner on the way in which he introduced the Measure. Perhaps the House does not always have the opportunity to appreciate that a conscientious Second Church Estates Commissioner has great demands on his time. No one could say that our present one is anything other than most conscientious in what he does.
I shall deal first with the point raised at the beginning of the debate by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). I totally agree with him. Nobody could possibly complain that this House, corporately or individually, had not the right most closely to examine this Measure. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman will ever have heard from the members of the General Synod any complaint that this House should do so. It is the law of the land that hon. Members should be enabled to do so. It is absolutely right and proper that the House should carefully examine any controversial Measure which comes before it.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Royal Tunbridge Wells (Mr. Mayhew) fairly drew our attention to a recent occasion when, by common consent of members of the General Synod, this House, quite correctly, seized upon a point affecting the rights of individuals and refused to accept a Measure. I make no complaint about that whatever, particularly now that the law is such that we have rid ourselves of what many hon. Members found to be an uncomfortable jurisdiction over the worship and doctrine of the Church of England. That bothered many hon. Members.
Therefore, my hon. and learned Friend certainly does not hear from me any complaint about hon. Members directing their minds to this Measure. But I am entitled to go this far in commenting on what he and others said. It is fair to recall that we are here dealing with legislation which has been considered by a body to which we gave life. It is under a mechanism that we or our predecessors directed, and in a sense it is a
1028
form of devolved legislation in that we can consider, accept or reject the matter in principle but cannot amend.
I get ever so slightly irritated—in a most Christian sort of way, of course—when it is suggested that the body that we have set up is not itself representative. It so happens that that body met last week and, consistent with my duties in Parliament, which meant that I could not be there as much as I wished, I sat with my fellow members on the General Synod.
Our assembly, in common with other assemblies, is not perfect, but I do not accept that those men and women, once elected, lose all touch with their constituents, constituencies or individual churches. They are all men and women in the pew. They may come to decisions that are wrong, but they are not rarified or detached persons, and Sunday after Sunday they are members of their respective congregations.
By way of illustration, since I am seeking to defend the powers in this Measure, let me say that the church that I attend is in a tiny village in which one of my forebears many years ago acted as rector for 51 years. He ruled with a rod of iron. He enjoyed a substantial income from the glebe in that parish. However, I am sure that he was a devout man of God as well as being a territorial magnate, since the two are not mutually exclusive.
When I was a boy there were still some old people who could remember their parents telling them that my forebear, the rector, always preached with the aid of an hourglass which was placed in full view of his congregation. However, when the sand eventually ran through the hourglass, he would upturn it and continue his sermon. I wish to make clear that that is not my intention tonight.
The first major criticism of this Measure relates to the process of consultation. When I was previously a member of the old General Assembly, from 1965 to 1970, these matters were then under discussion. At that time we were considering the Fenton Morley Report, which was the basis from which all this arose. Indeed, in many ways I was surprised to find the whole matter still boiling hard when I returned in 1975. At

1029
that time questions were put about the principle of the centralisation of the glebe.
All those soundings were being taken on this matter, and it was most carefully researched. It is true to say that the matter was not referred by the General Synod to every diocesan synod, but I ask the House to appreciate the great mass of business which every diocesan synod must transact. If at the end of the process every controversial matter of almost any kind is to be referred down the chain, not only will the whole process of legislation be incredibly slow, but such business will need to be transacted on Saturday mornings and afternoons. That burden is much greater than we should impose.
Consultation was carried out in the ways I have described and then every incumbent was informed about what was intended so that he could make representations. Some hon. Members may doubt whether all incumbents received the communication, but I beg to differ. The consultation was undertaken through the pay packet, and I am sure that we should have heard a considerable amount about it if the pay packets had not arrived. It was right that there should have been that careful consultation.
Then there is the question whether centralisation of the administration of the glebe will result in its being better managed. I am not referring to the very centre, of course. It will be at diocesan level rather than central level.
I believe that the indications are encouraging. Paragraph 15 of the Committee's report shows how the costs of the administration in those dioceses where it has so far been voluntarily undertaken are low in relation to the increased income of pay.
The evidence is strong. Incredible though it may seem, some glebe was actually lost and some was considerably under-rented—hon. Members on both sides have accepted this—and there was the reluctance of the modern clergyman to be a landlord. My great-great-grand-father was a territorial magnate, but the modern parson does not see himself in that rôle, and nor is it appropriate in 1976 that he should be in that rôle. I am not questioning the relevance of this in the past, but I very much question its relevance today.
1030
It may be argued that there should be a scheme in each diocese which everyone should join. My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills) made this point in a knowledgeable and telling speech. But is it not likely to be the very people who ought to be getting a better return from the glebe and who are better aware of its potential who would be unlikely voluntarily to join a central scheme of this kind?
There is expense in the existing administration of glebe, but in any system there can be agents' fees and the rest, This is a factor which must be borne in mind when balancing the costs of a transfer to diocesan level.
All hon. Members who were present at the time will remember the telling speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), who likened this process to compulsory purchase. But to me, at any rate, there is a wealth of difference between the removal of an individual private right and the transfer of the legal ownership in this particular way, with the objective still correctly limited to clergy stipend. I find a very substantial difference in principle between the two.
I sum up this aspect of what I seek to persuade the House by saying that I believe that the case has been made out, that the Church ought to make the best use of its inherited assets as it can, that it is demonstrably not doing so to the best advantage throughout the country at the moment, that in those pilot schemes where it has been tried it is showing a better return for the increased income, and that it would be proper for the Church, at a time of acute financial difficulty, to ask this House to allow it to proceed further.
The next objection that has been raised is that this is a Measure which will, first weaken the parson's freehold and, secondly, benefit the towns at the expense of the country. The reason given is that this will be one further Measure of control at the centre and that an unprincipled bishop who disagrees with a man who is otherwise protected by this freehold can manipulate the financial levers to the disadvantage of the man who has fallen into disfavour.
I join with others in saying that, like so much else that we have inherited, the

1031
freehold in the Church of England has had enormous benefits. It has actually meant a certain freedom from episcopal control which has been valuable, I believe, to the intellectual life of the Church of England. I also believe that, as with other aspects of our national life—and I draw a very approximate analogy with the position of a headmaster or a headmistress of a school—we are considering whether in limited conditions that should always so continue.
It cannot be too strongly said—and here I look to my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and Maidenhead (Dr. Glyn), who quite understandably had anxieties here and saw me writing a note busily at the time—that the Measure does not affect patronage in the sense in which he raised it. There have been some proposals for dealing with this. I make no secret of the fact that I am very uneasy indeed about some of the proposals that I have seen, and I shall not be at all surprised if they do not eventually come before us in a form very different from what we may have seen in the Press. But that is a different matter. That is not what we have here.
The Measure deals with finance and I make this answer to those who have an anxiety about the situation. If, in fact, an unprincipled bishop at any time wanted to manoeuvre the financial levers to the disadvantage of a beneficed clergyman, he already has the power so to do. The reason, as we see in the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee, is that 93 per cent. of such men are already "subsidised", if I may use that word in inverted commas, from central funds. They are already at the mercy, if one likes so to call it, of the ecclesiastical establishment.
If one makes the supposition that this is a lever which will be used, my answer is that that lever is already there. It will not be accentuated to any great degree by the Measure, Indeed, by reason of inflation, year by year the number of clergy with an independent income has dwindled, and in my view that process will undoubtedly continue.
Finally, I think that it is possible that those who have an anxiety about these matters would be helped by looking at
1032
Clause 9 of the Measure, with particular reference to subsection (3), which is new. That provides that the directions of the bishop
"shall be consistent with any directions given by the Commissioners, in the exercise of their functions as the Central Stipends Authority."
There is no possibility of a bishop going contrary to their general directions.
It is beyond belief that, as an act of policy, the Commissioners would sanction a deliberate financial provocation against a given man. Therefore, those who, doubtless for good reasons, are anxious about this centralisation, have at least a partial answer in this Measure.
I turn now to the central issue—the inviolability of endowments. I naturally approach this matter with considerable wariness, without apology. Few hon. Members on either side of the House would not do that. It is fair to recall how far his House by legislation has already gone. For example, as a member of the Pastoral Committee of the Church Commissioners, month by month I take part in decisions resulting from disputes or objections to schemes for reorganising or uniting parishes.
As the law stands, it is possible for endowments, including those produced by legacy to be diverted from an individual benefice to wider stipend uses. Month by month I take part in this process with my colleagues. This is no new concept in the life of the Church. It derives directly from authority given by this House.
We should not make too much of the generous bequests to the Church in years gone by. For example, looking at Appendix IV to the report of the Ecclesiastical Committee, hon. Members will see the sources from which the benefice endowment income of the Church comes. Frankly, the vast majority, as the figures show, comes from the Enclosure Acts. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the history of this matter before giving the appearance that the vast majority of it is the result of bequests.
This is a difficult matter. Should we or should we not intervene in the original intentions of a testator? In dealing with the general charitable law, in certain conditions we say yes. Of course, the endowments about which we are talking are not subject to the Charities Act 1960, which was when we last legislated for

1033
charities. But we have provision—I refer to Clause 13—to make more effective use of property which is available by virtue of gift, together with other property, regard being had to the spirit of the gift. We have imported that concept into our general law. Therefore, we are not doing such damage as some hon. Members might fear.
I am convinced that the future pattern of giving, for financial reasons—I suspect this will be the situation under any Government—will be not exclusively but overwhelmingly of income, not of capital. I believe that we are living in a new era in that respect. It is calculated—the Second Church Estates Commissioner gave us this figure, but it is worth repeating—that the laity of the Church of England are at present contributing about £10 million a year towards stipends, but by way of income, and I am sure that that will be the way of giving in the future.
That, therefore, is my summing up of the case put forward by the Second Church Estates Commissioner. However, I want to end on a positive note. I hope that I have dealt, however inadequately, with the essential questions raised in this very thoughtful debate. I wish that all hon. Members could have been present.
For those who have not been, I would respectfully advise that they would be much helped by reading the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham), who traced back with such erudition into the history of this matter and showed how it was really part of a pattern which the Church has been following year by year in order to keep up with modern times.
I sometimes get rather depressed when the Church is told to bring itself up to date, to modernise itself, to square up to the problems of the day, to look not only at the past, not to be fuddy-duddy, and so on. Part of that process, while always, I hope, retaining all that is really valuable of the past, must be the adequate
remuneration of the clergy in a full-time ministry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Melton, in a very impressive speech, castigated, understandably, what we laymen were so far achieving. He was right, of course, though I feel sure that I am in order in a technical sense in reminding him that, because of the enormous efforts of the laity at present, in the last year alone there has been a substantial reduction in the number of clergy who are below the lower end of the recommended target for stipends—and that in an age of inflation. The number has gone from 35 per cent. down to 24 per cent. in one year.
Of course it is not good enough, but in an age of inflation and difficulty it is very remarkable. Perhaps I may say that it would have been greater if, quite correctly, the Central Stipends Authority had not been totally obedient to the guidelines of the Government's pay policy. Secondly, the average increase last year has kept pace with the percentage increase in the retail price index. That, too, represents no mean effort in the past year. Finally, the gap between the highest and the lowest averages of the diocese, in other words, between the "best" and the "worst"—putting those words in inverted commas—has narrowed once again. That has been possible through the sustained giving of income and will increasingly require the sustained giving of income by the laity.
In response to that, my submission is that the laity will fairly ask that the Church makes the most effective uses that it can of its historical endowments. It is that which is the thread going through the Measure, and it is that which commends it, as I respectfully commend it to the House.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 75, Noes 24.

Division No. 405.]

AYES

[9.18 p.m.

Alison, Michael

Carlisle, Mark

English, Michael

Armstrong, Ernest

Cocks, Rt Hon Michael

Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

Ashton, Joe

Coleman, Donald

Eyre, Reginald

Bales, Alf

Cryer, Bob

Freud, Clement

Beith, A. J.

Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Dormand, J. D.

Graham, Ted

Bottomley, Peter

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Duffy, A. E. P.

Harper, Joseph

Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)

Eadle, Alex

Harrison, Waiter (Wakefield)

Buchan, Norman

Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

Hayhoe, Barney

Howell, Rt Hon Denis (B'ham, Sm H)

Normanton, Tom

Spearing, Nigel

Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

Ogden, Eric

Spriggs, Leslie

Hunt, John (Bromley)

Page, John (Harrow West)

Stoddart, David

Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd&W'df'd)

Palmer, Arthur

Tinn, James

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Pardoe, John

Urwin, T. W.

Kirk, Sir Peter

Parker John

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

Parkinson, Cecil

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

McElhone, Frank

Peyton, Rt Hon John

Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

MacGregor, John

Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

White, Frank R. (Bury)

McNair-Wilson. P. (New Forest)

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Whitlock, William

McNamara, Kevin

Ryman, John

Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

Mates, Michael

Scott, Nicholas

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Mawby, Ray

Shepherd, Colin

Maynard, Miss Joan

Silvester, Fred

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Sinclair, Sir George

Mr. Ivor Clemitson and

Mills, Peter

Snape, Peter

Mr. Michael Latham.

Noble, Mike

NOES

Banks, Robert

Davies, Rt Hon J. (Knutsford)

Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch

Biffen, John

Glyn, Dr Alan

St. John-Stevas, Norman

Chalker, Mrs Lynda

Knox, David

Skinner, Dennis

Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

Marten, Neil

Stradling Thomas, J.

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Mayhew, Patrick

Winterton, Nicholas

Clegg, Walter

Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

Molyneaux, James

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Cope, John

Nelson, Anthony

Mr. Robin Maxwell;Hyslop and

Cordie, John H.

Page, Richard (Workington)

Mr. John Stokes.

Cormack, Patrick

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Endowments and Glebe Measure, passed by the General Synod of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

JOINT EUROPEAN TORUS PROJECT
9.30 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of Commission Document No. R/2284/76 and of the Government's view that Culham is the best site for JET.
The Joint European Torus is the proposed centre-piece of the European Communities' fusion research programme. There is broad scientific agreement that it is the right next step for the Community to undertake. The construction phase of JET has always been planned as part of the five-year Community programme for the years 1976–80, but although the Council has agreed the remainder of the programme, and released the relevant expenditure for 1976, we have not yet been able to agree on JET itself.
Several problems have arisen, but the main one has always been, "Where shall we build it?" This issue has been of particular interest to both sides of the House ever since JET was first proposed by the Commission. I welcome the opportunity that we are taking today to give further attention to this important subject. To focus our debate this evening we are fortunate in having the Report of the Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation.
During my opening remarks I shall try to deal with those matters which the Committee has brought to our notice, but first perhaps I might give a brief outline of the ministerial discussions which have taken place in the Community since our last debate on JET on 16th March.
Foreign Ministers of the Community discussed JET on 29th June and 19th July. They came to a favourable opinion on the rapid initiation of the project within the framework of the Community's 1976–80 thermo-nuclear fusion research programme which we had agreed at the earlier Research Council in February. However, they took no decision on the vexed question of the site for JET. This and other outstanding elements relating to the project were held over for the Research Council to consider further.
The Research Council which I attended was held on 21st October. For that meeting the Commission prepared
1038
Document R/2284/76 which is the subject of our debate today. As the Select Committee has pointed out, the document highlights the four outstanding questions, and also contains a draft decision which would permit the project's inclusion in the current Community thermonuclear fusion research programme. There was no discussion of the JET siting issue at this Council. Provisional agreement, subject to a decision on the site, was however, reached on the financial and organisation questions to which the Commission and the Select Committee have drawn attention.
On finance, the Commission had proposed that 80 per cent. of the cost of JET—108 million units of account—should be met from the general budget of the Community with the remainder being shared among the associated laboratories. The House will know that, in the past, we have consistently supported this concept of apportioning the costs of JET. The Research Council agreed that the Community should pay 80 per cent. However, it was clear that there was a general desire, particularly among the smaller member States, that the host country should pay some financial premium. A Danish proposal for a 10 per cent. host country premium with Euratom paying 80 per cent, of the total costs and the associated laboratories meeting the remaining 10 per cent. was acceptable to all my European colleagues and we agreed that this should be the basis on which we would proceed.
The Commission had also proposed that the host country should meet the expenditure necessary to bring the chosen site up to a "standard condition" to receive JET, and we all agreed that this was a reasonable condition for placing JET on any particular site. We agreed that at the conclusion of the experiment—in perhaps 15 years' time—the ownership of the assets and liabilities of the project and responsibility for them would pass to the host country. This means that the host country will have sole discretion to decide, in co-operation with its national safety authorities, how to decommission the equipment; but it will own the valuable assets—the buildings and power supplies—in return.
On the legal status of the project, there is general agreement in the Community that JET, no matter where it is sited,

1039
needs an independent legal status to enable contracts and management operations to be handled efficiently.
The Commission's proposal in Document R/2284/76 for the establishment of a joint undertaking within the meaning of Articles 45 to 51 of the Euratom Treaty will meet this requirement for independent legal status, and is acceptable to all member States.
On staffing arrangements, the discussion was less clear cut. Ministers accepted the Commission's proposal that the host country should second staff to the project but could not reach agreement on whether the balance of staff would be temporary agents of the Commission. We shall be returning to this matter later this month.
Although not formally discussed on 21st October, the Commission repeated in Document R/2284/76 its view that the project should go to Ispra, the Community's Joint Research Centre in Northern Italy.
The JET project is the most expensive single experiment the Community has ever contemplated, and one of the most difficult. We have made it clear from the start that in our view it is essential that JET should be sited where it has the best possible chance of success. This means that the decision must be based primarily on scientific and technical considerations.
We regard it as essential that the site should have a back-ground of plasma physics and associated engineering to provide support to the JET team in overcoming the problems of construction and initial operation which are bound to be encountered with an advanced technological project of this kind.
Ispra has no relevant experience and we therefore cannot accept the Commission's proposal to site JET there. Culham has a very successful record of machine construction and operation, and its programme since 1970 has been specifically directed towards the Tokamak route to fusion. We therefore believe that our site is particularly well qualified to host the experiment.
Finally, as the Select Committee has pointed out, the Commission has proposed that, if there is no agreement on the siting question by the end of the year,
1040
the Commission should choose the site on the basis of a recommendation by the JET Council, which would make recommendations on the basis of a two thirds majority vote.
This proposal is entirely contrary to the accepted principles for decision taking in the Community. When matters are of such difficulty and importance as to need the prolonged ministerial discussion which JET has required, the Government would regard it as particularly inappropriate for the Council to remit the decision.
The Research Council will discuss JET again on 18th November. It is, therefore, particularly helpful to me today to have the opportunity of hearing the views of the House on the important issues which are still outstanding.
9.40 p.m.
Mr. Tom Normanton: At this late hour both sides of the House should be grateful to the Minister for his presentation of the factual situation in the proposal to implement the Community's JET project within the framework of the five-year research and training programme in plasma physics. I do not quarrel with what he has said. I and my right hon. and hon. Friends are more concerned with what he has not said, and it is that aspect to which I shall address myself.
I hope that the House will allow me to draw upon my own humble and modest experience and that of my hon. and noble Friends who have served for almost four years on the European Parliament's Committee on Energy and Research. The Minister drew heavily on the experience of his hon. and noble Friends who have been active on that Committee since July of last year. I should have been surprised if he had not done so, because he and the Secretary of State for Energy would be the poorer.
With one special exception the House would be ill advised to adopt too partisan an approach to our consideration of the document, for far too much is at stake for this country and Europe. But the one exception concerns the widely held belief—and I cannot over-emphasise this—that the Government have no coherent policy for energy—for coal, oil, gas or nuclear power. If there is no clear policy for the protection, distribution and

1041
consumption of energy, it is extremely difficult to form a policy for research into future developments in that area.
One only has to study the speeches of such eminent and universally respected experts as Sir John Hill, who addressed the British Association at Lancaster on 3rd September, to understand what I mean. We should also study the evidence given to the Energy and Research Committee about two years ago in Brussels when a panel of internationally highly reputable scientists, including Sir John Hill, were subjected to the most intensive interrogation on energy policy.
That puts into sharper and keener perspective Britain's performance in nuclear power production and programme commitments compared with the rest of the European Community. When we look at the rest of the world and consider the United States and the Soviet Union, I have to confess that the picture looks even more depressing.
I hope that no hon. Members will launch themselves into an exercise of partisanship. Despite all that may have been implied by what I have said so far, we must recognise that here in Britain we have some brilliant brains. It behoves the Government to do all they can to make sure that those brains are deployed in Britain for Britain, to the maximum advantage of the individuals concerned and of the public. If we fail to do that, we shall lose them and shall deserve to be indicted for it. An all-out effort by the Secretary of State is called for if he is to succeed later this week in convincing, or persuading against their better judgment, his fellow Energy Ministers, or maybe even the Council of Foreign Ministers, of the wisdom of establishing the Joint European Torus project at Culham.
It is not for me or my right hon. and hon. Friends to tell the Government how they should do their job, but I must ask a number of questions and make a number of points. Do the Government appreciate how deep seated and sincerely held are the misgivings of most member States about our industrial will and even our industrial capability and, even more, our political will in this area? At a meeting of our Energy and Research Committee only two or three weeks ago, a number of cuttings from German newspapers
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were quoted. One, from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, was a damning picture of construction progress at Dounreay. Another, an extract from Die Welt, painted a gloomy picture of the industrial climate in Britain, and particularly of industrial relations.
Such reports are not the best encouragement for a commitment by the Community to invest hundreds of millions of units of account in a construction programme in Britain. Whether they are true or false is not the point at issue. They represent a widely-held view which causes deep and abiding distress to hon. Members on both sides of the House who hear it expressed in the presence of other European parliamentarians. It cannot be ignored, and I hope that we shall be assured that it will not be ignored when we are negotiating for the JET project to he established at Culham.
On the other side of the coin it is only fair to say that two years ago it could have been said with complete justification that no one but a fool, and an irresponsible fool at that, would have been willing to put one unit of account into the Joint Research Centre at Ispra. But since then there has been a major change of management. The present director, M. Dinkenspieler, who came from the ELDO project, has made a big impact in the short time he has been there. We should be ill-advised to ignore his influence and the very different climate at the JRC, this Euratom project, compared with what we have heard for so many years.
The Secretary of State will have no mean task in persuading his Continental Socialist friends to fall into line with Culham. They are overwhelmingly, but not unanimously, in favour of Ispra, for a variety of reasons. After at least a year the Commission is still said to be of the same opinion—that the JET project should be established at Ispra. Unfortunately members of the Commission, like parliamentarians of all parties, have not forgotten our tragic affair with Dragon.
Since the Commission showed its preference for Ispra, a number of developments have been formulated which the Secretary of State should note. The Ispra JRC has become very much busier and therefore it is more productive in research activities. It is much busier in research

1043
programmes prepared and presented by the Commission through its special consultative committees.
Ispra has also succeeded, under its new management, in obtaining a considerable portion of work in the form of contract research commissions from industry in the EEC and sources in other parts of the world. Ispra still has some small capacity left, and the siting of JET would mean considerable expansion in new buildings and new facilities above and beyond those which are currently available.
Some hon. Members and some noble Lords saw and appreciated the veracity of these remarks when we visited Ispra, a few weeks ago. If Ispra JRC obtains further research commitments other than JET, I suggest that there might be some weakening of the pressure for JET to go to that site.
Does the Minister intend to try to avoid topping up the current Ispra research programme? If so, would he suggest the particular subjects which he considers might be more effectively allocated to Ispra? If the Council of Ministers were to agree ultimately to Culham, would the Minister consider some sub-contracting of part of this major long-term project to Espra while retaining the overall control of the project and the major siting of the greater part of the work at Culham?
The Minister is painfully aware of the "trade-off" which is a common feature of decision-taking in the EEC. Has he considered a trade-off to achieve what the Government have declared to be their policy—to see the siting of JET at Culham?
The view has been repeatedly and strongly expressed by the European Parliament that research and development in new scientific fields should not be based on a process of haggling and bartering as in some Arab bazaar. The sole criterion in our judgment—and this is the uniform view of the European Parliament—for allotting research tasks on behalf of the Community should be expertise, scientific excellence, and specific and potential capabilities of the establishment to which the allocation is made.
I can only place on record that Herr Flamig, a German Socialist, made this point very strongly in a report on the
1044
research programme when he spoke on the subject recently in the European Parliament. I need hardly say that in this House there is unquestionably a large measure of confidence that Culham fits the bill exceptionally well—better today than when the Commission did its original homework.
I ask the Minister to confirm this to the House. For example, is he able to confirm that the availability of power supplies, a point on which the Culham site was originally downgraded, is perfectly adequate? On the subject of staff housing, schooling and facilities generally, is it not true that today Culham has facilities equal if not superior to those of Ispra? Would not the Minister also agree—this is a point which, though painful, is true—that the collapse of the pound in recent months would, or at least could, make the expenditure of Community units of account much more worth while in Britain than anywhere else in Europe?
What other attractions can the Government offer to clinch this deal? We have to recognise that the staff at Culham have been going through what can only be described as a truly traumatic time—nearly as bad as that experienced at Ispra two years ago. Does not the Minister feel that there is still a wealth of scientific experience and expertise at Culham in nuclear physics which could help JET get off to a good start—a feature which is not present at Ispra?
Much depends upon construction work and upon the work of outside contractors who must not let the scientists down. Can the Minister assure the House and the Ministers of the other eight member States that such frustrations and delays will not affect the JET project at Culham once it is approved, as I hope it will be?
Time is running out for us. So are our present supplies of energy from fossil fuel sources. Fusion is certainly seen by many, if not most forward-thinking scientists as offering an excellent, some would say the best and most promising, prospect for a new form of energy for the early part of the twenty-first century.
Delay in reaching a decision, or the reaching of the wrong decision about the siting of JET, will mean economic impotence for Britain particularly and for Europe in general. The Secretary of

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State carries a great responsibility in his deliberations with his European ministerial colleagues. His greatest duty is for him to convince them beyond any shadow of doubt that Britain is in Europe and irrevocably committed to staying there.
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If by any of his words or deeds there is produced the slightest lingering suspicion in the minds of the Ministers representing the other eight member States, that will be the most certain way of killing Culham's expectations stone dead.
10.0 p.m.
Mr. Arthur Palmer: The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton) speaks with a considerable knowledge of the European politics of energy and of nuclear energy in particular. I would not attempt to rival him in that respect, because I do not serve on the various European bodies, although I am a straunch pro-European, but I feel that there was a defect in his speech in that he seemed to take too much for granted the possibilities of nuclear fusion. That is a mistake which is all too easily made.
The search for success with nuclear fusion is rather like the search for El Dorado which was undertaken by Elizabethan explorers. It was to be the perfect goal if it could be attained. It was always tantalisingly possible and it was felt that if it could be attained it would make all the previous successful explorations poor by comparisoin—that is, if El Dorado were found. It never was found, and the explorers and their backers had to be content with the more minor riches which had been found and were exploitable.
It is the same with nuclear fusion. The search for a nuclear method that will give abundant energy from isotopes of hydrogen without radioactive waste continues in all the advanced industrial countries, including the United Kingdom.
Yet it would be foolish to neglect what I call the imperfect possible for the hope of perfection. This is borne out to some extent by the evidence that was given to the Select Committee on Science and Technology when we visited Culham on 25th February this year. That evidence has been published and is available to the House.
I hope I shall not take too long in quoting answers given to several penetrating questions—I put them, so I have good reason to know—and answered by our witnesses, particularly Dr. Marshall, the chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy, and also the Deputy Chairman of the Atomic Energy Authority, who presumably is in a good position to understand these things from the British point of view.
The first question I put as Chairman was this:
"It would not be true to say that you can obtain energy by the fusion process by snatch-
1048
ing it from the water or from the air, as the so-called popular Press have suggested?"
Dr. Marshall replied:
"That is quite correct".
I went on to say:
"There are natural limitations here?"
The answer was:
"Yes, it is extremely difficult technology. I think the difficulty about making judgments on this subject is very easily summed up by saying that the potential that it has is, for all practical purposes, unlimited and infinite, and the difficulty is near-infinite. It would be my best judgment that we will be able to make electricity from controlled fusion, but whether it will be done reliably and economically is a much more difficult question."
The next point I put to him was this:
"I was always told that the test of a good engineer is not just to be able to do something, but to be able to do it at a price. How far do you think that rule applies here, that is the balance between what is scientifically and technically possible and what is economically worth doing?"
Dr. Marshall replied:
"That is the 64,000 dollar question. At the moment we are trying to establish that it can be done at all. Then we have to examine whether it is going to be economic. It is no good doing those sums with present day values of fuels; you have to look ahead to the next century and anticipate the situation."
Dr. Marshall did not anticipate difficulties apparently in looking into the next century.
Mr. Anthony Nelson: I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman and to the evidence from which he quoted. Does he believe that we would get far more power out of the scheme than is put into it, quite apart from the economic considerations involving JET? Was there any indication in the evidence of the basic facts to make the machine more efficient—and not only an economic but a scientific proposition in that it works? My understanding at present is that it does not work. Did the hon. Gentleman inquire into this matter and did he discover what were the factors involved?
Mr. Palmer: It would take me a long time to quote all the questions and answers given to us when we went to Culham, but if the hon. Gentleman reads the evidence—and I am pleased that he is now a member of the Select Committee—he will find that the question of the balance between the power input and what

1049
is obtained from it was dealt with by the experts who gave evidence to us.
I wish to make it clear that I am quoting these questions and answers not in any sense to belittle the great work undertaken at Culham but in seeking to argue that it would be wrong to overspend on nuclear fusion if it means diverting funds from, say, development of the fast breeder reactor. Success with these sources of energy is well within our grasp, but fusion is fram from being within our grasp.
Matters would be very much easier for us to understand if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy would give Parliament some inkling of his overall energy strategy. Such a strategy is badly lacking. In a recent debate I urged the Government to produce a White Paper on their energy policy. The weakness in the Department at the moment is that it is an excessively technical Department but it has not been treated as such. In other words, it attempts to find answers to social questions to which its answers are not required, while at the same time neglecting to deal with questions on which decisions are required and in relation to which, in the nature of things, only the Energy Manister can make the decisions. This is suspected not only by moderate critics such as myself in this country but by those on the Continent as well.
The high costs of fusion work make it unlikely that any single Community country could afford a big enough programme and certainly none would be able to afford a successful fusion reactor on a commercial scale. When the Select Committee took evidence at Culham, Dr. Marshall talked of a successful fusion reactor being about 2,000 megawatts, which is a very large enterprise.
Tokamak is only one fusion technique. When Lord Mills was Minister of Power about 20 years ago, the ZETA technique was hailed as a tremendous breakthrough for nuclear technology in the fusion field. But there were doubts and misunderstandings about what was actually going on within the plasma contained in the magnetic loops and Zeta turned out to be a false dawn.
Tokamak is another development, albeit probably much more hopeful than those of the past, but it is only one approach. If it is more hopeful, that is largely because not only the EEC but the
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United States and the Soviet Union are for the moment following the same path.
No one has so far mentioned that there has been fruitful collaboration between Culham and Soviet fusion research stations. When we were at Culham, our witnesses assured us that there was no clash between European co-operation and working with the Russians in this respect.
I can imagine that in working with the Russians on a scientific matter of this kind, one is probably as far from everyday politics as it is possible to get with the Russians. It is probably as genuine a scientific and technical collaboration as is possible between two countries with widely-varying social and political systems.
Noting the universality of this Torus fusion technique, understanding its limitations and getting it into perspective, I believe that the House must approve, in general terms, the Community communication which we are now considering. It is obvious that our national resources are too slender to pursue any other course. We either go in with the European Torus or leave fusion research to others. This may not be the view that we held 20 years ago, but it can be the only view now.
The major disagreement—and this has been well canvassed already—is about the siting of the work. The Government wish the decision to rest with Ministers and not be left to the Commission. At this stage, I do not disagree with that approach. Obviously, it keeps things more in our own hands—or at least that is the hope.
But a question about which I am not very clear is this. Since our main rivals in the matter of the competition for the site are the French, the Germans and the Italians, one would expect them to take the same attitude as ourselves at this stage, at any rate, that it should be left to the Ministers, because it might in some circumstances give them the bargaining edge. But do they? I should like to have this information. I did not get it from my hon. Friend's remarks.
I believe, because of my admiration for the work done at Culham and the facilities which are available there—as was stated, they have been considerably improved from not only a technical but a

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social point of view, and that is very important—that it would be foolish if Culham were not to be used. But I must put this very bluntly to the Government. Suppose that we do not get our own way. I hope that, if we do not get our own way, we shall loyally accept any decision which is made against us by our friends in the EEC.
I should like to quote what was said in evidence at Culham by Dr. Marshall—presumably on behalf of the scientific staff in the Atomic Energy Authority—in reply to a question by a member of the Energy Resources Sub-Committee of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. The question was:
"Perhaps I may ask Dr. Marshall to reconsider the answer to the question he regarded as hypothetical if I put it in a different way. Instead of asking him what he thinks the future is if the JET project does not come here, could I ask him: does he consider we should continue to support the joint European fusion project if it does not come here, even if that means substantially reducing the budget for fusion research here at Culham?"
Dr. Marshall gave a plain answer to that. It was "Yes". From the Chair I attempted to reinforce the point. I asked:
"You would support continuing to work with the European programme?"
The answer to that question was "Yes".
I suggest to the Government, therefore, that we must certainly fight as hard as we can to get the project sited at Culham, but that if we are unsuccessful in this respect it is very much in the interests of our nuclear research and development and the staff at Culham that we work in with our colleagues in the EEC. We certainly could not afford to do it without them now.
10.18 p.m.
Mr. Nigel Forman: I do not seek to follow or emulate the widely recognised expertise of the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) but to make a small conaribution as a layman to the debate on these very interesting Community documents which are before us tonight.
I believe that these EEC documents are important because they concern the next stage of the European effort in nuclear fusion technology. I believe that this par-
1052
ticular technology is important because it offers the long-term possibility of what Dr. Marshall, the Department of Energy's chief scientist, has described as an energy source of infinite value balanced against almost infinite difficulty.
I suggest, therefore, that since there is no way in which it would make any sense to push ahead with this superstar technology except on a collaborative basis with our international partners, it is therefore vitally important from the European point of view that we secure agreement to proceed with the five-year Euroatom research programme for 1976–80 which is under consideration tonight and to do so at the best of the available sites.
We know that the Commission has proposed that, if agreement cannot be reached on the main outstanding question of the site for this project, it should choose the site itself on the basis of a recommendation by a two-thirds majority of the JET Council. Surely such an arcane procedure should not be necessary. In my view, it would be better, even at this late stage, if the member Governments recognised the urgency and importance of this matter by taking a final decision before the end of this year, if necessary at Heads of Government level in December.
By all accounts, even the Germans and the Italians now recognise that Culham would be the best site for the next stage of this work. It would be what Lord Hinton so aptly described in another place as the best "centre of excellence" for this purpose.
Looking at the Site Committee's criteria, which were clearly set out by Lord Melchett in another place, we see that certain considerations have to be borne in mind. On all these considerations I believe that we can demonstrate that Culham has the edge.
First, there is the question of the availability of electrical power supplies. It is clear to me that Didcot power station could satisfy that need.
There is the question of facilities for handling tritium and activated materials. Surely the enormous experience of Harwell and its proximity would satisfy that point.

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There is the question of the quality of supporting services and the infrastructure necessary for such an adventurous project. Again, I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House will recognise that Culham's record so far, going right back to the early 1960s, both on the design and other stages of the project, fits it well for that task.
There is the slightly more tangential consideration of appropriate conditions for the multinational staff who would be involved in such a project. As an alumnus of Oxford University and somebody who deeply loves the town of Oxford, I believe that nothing could be better for this multinational team than to be in sight of the "dreaming spires" where these days one hears many more foreign tongues than English spoken due to the prominence of the tourist trade.
I believe that this House should leave the nine member Governments in no doubt whatsoever of its strong opposition to any further delay in taking the necessary decision on this matter.
Delay has discouraged the JET project staff and made it difficult to hold the team together, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton) so rightly said. Delay runs the growing risk of jeopardising not only the fairly modest European fusion programme, which is likely to be less than half the cost of the American or Russian programmes, but the spirit of European co-operation to which we on the Opposition Benches attach considerable importance. Delay is damaging the already diminished credibility of the Community's decision-making procedures, to which this House should pay serious attention.
Perhaps most insidious of all, further delay might undermine the necessary political will in this country to support the necessary research and development expenditure involved in an area where we in Europe could and should be able to achieve comparable results with those of the two super-Powers. I cannot believe that it is beyond the determination and wit of this country to capitalise on something where we already have a manifest scientific and technological advantage, when the cost of this project, as outlined by the Commission in these documents, is £56 million.
As with all other aspects of nuclear technology, the lead times are long and
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the costs can be daunting. Indeed, further research, as the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East pointed out, may show that the game is not worth the candle, but we must at least investigate, and investigate properly.
I believe that the prize of eventual successful commercial development of fusion technology will be what the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority described as
"an opportunity to use an energy source which could be of almost limitless magnitude."
I would add that it is one that is likely to have significantly fewer deleterious effects, environmentally and otherwise, than those associated with fission technology and especially the fast breeder reactor.
We are invited tonight to take note of the Community document before us and of the Government's view that Culham is the best site for the JET project. I do more than take note of the latter half of the motion. I strongly support the Government's view. I hope that it v ill be some small comfort to the Minister and to his right hon. Friend when they attend the ministerial meeting later this week to know that those of us on the Opposition side of the House strongly wish them success in their venture to gain for Culham the repute and position that it deserves.
10.26 p.m.
Mr. John Davies: In the course of this interesting and enlightened debate, one issue arose from the Minisster's opening remarks on which I should like to feel that there was some elucidation. I refer to the proposed Council decision and the rehearsal of the "Whereas" paragraphs which go before it. I come to that which says
"Whereas the host Country will bear all the costs necessary to provide the JET project with the site in the required condition as well as all the costs for de-commissioning the device at the end of its operation."
The Minister elaborated somewhat on the meaning of this "whereas", and the meaning of at least part of it was, he said, that at the end of the research project the physical assets would remain the property of the host country, which would also be answerable for the liabilities. Being a somewhat hesitant person in respect to acceptance of liabilities

1055
without definition, I should be grateful if the Minister would say what that might amount to and the degree to which he considers it proper that the host country should accept at this stage a total answerability for the residual liabilities of the operation.
It seems a matter of considerable importance, as one embarks on the kind of project about which the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), for instance, has spoken with great knowledge. I am much less able to discuss it with such knowledge, but it seems a new important and vital Project, which I wholly support.
The Minister must feel content that all around the House, despite questions and points that hon. Members may wish to raise, there is a feeling of support for his mission. It would be wise for him to let us know very clearly that he will not be exposing the country, when he brings back the project with him to Culham, as I sincerely believe he will, to a degree of liability which is unjustified and which might be exceedingly heavy. Therefore, perhaps the Minister will say what he meant by the expression "all residual liabilities".
10.29 p.m.
Mr. Geoffrey Dodsworth: I should like to make a brief intervention following that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies), who has referred to his doubts about the question of future financial costs. It is to that subject that I should like to address my remarks.
I notice that we are to have a joint venture, a new animal, to run this project. One of the responsibilities that is given to this joint venture is not only the scientific control but the financial and administrative control. I speak with due trepidation in an area of extreme scientific expertise and knowledge, and I recognise that purely financial considerations are somewhat difficult to identify in those circumstances. Nevertheless, I look at the project which, as I understand it, is likely to cost about £56 million in sterling terms over a four-year period and ask myself how that expenditure relates to the strategy of this country overall.
I welcome the opportunity of sharing with the Community research and deve-
1056
lopment of this nature and doing it in this way, but in whatever way I try to identify what the likely outcome is to be it seems that the benefits are not likely to arise probably until the year 2000, so we seem to be setting off on a long course indeed.
When I hear about the desirable prestige of the project and what a unique opportunity it presents, but I do not see much information about the methods of financial control and monitoring, I begin to say to myself "Perhaps I have heard this before", and I have to express some concern that in the desire to capture a scientific and technological lead we ensure that we do not lose sight of our own financial difficulties and, indeed, the world's financial difficulties, and that we look at this project in that sort of light. We have some knowledge of some of the problems that arise from research and development. It is a cost that can be endless. It continues to be fed. It is a hungry animal which, once started, goes on and on.
I draw attention briefly to some of the difficulties. In the accounts of British Nuclear Fuels there is a qualification in the auditors' report. It refers to the difficulty of assessing losses that might occur as a result of processing contracts. These contracts are having to be renegotiated. I mention that only because it was not possible to quantify those figures. It was not possible to say what the figures might be. We are in a new technology, a new area of energy, but we are also in a new area of the need for financial control. I should like to be clear exactly where this project fits in with our national strategy. I recognise that it is a European decision, but where does it fit in with the decisions that we have to take? Do we understand the financial consequences of what will follow?
The project has led a hand-to-mouth existence over the past few months. The original agreement has to have a little more money, and it was extended for six months. We would not make a decision on how much money to spend until we knew where it would go. I should like to raise a little mouse of doubt about what is to take place, to make sure that we know where our money is going.
10.33 p.m.
Mr. Ronald Brown: I believe that we have to

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strike out at some point to make sure what our strategy will be for the twenty-first century, and this decision has to be made. I am a supporter of the project, and it is right to go ahead, recognising, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) said, that Zeta has fallen off. It is my belief that the kind of knowledge that we shall gain will be valuable, even if the JET project is not totally successful.
I agree that it is a little sad that the Government have not been able to make up their minds about their general strategy. My hon. Friend and I who serve on the Select Committee frequently find that in questioning both members of the Government and experts in the field there seems to be little idea of what the general direction is supposed to be.
The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton) quoted in some detail from Sir John Hill. My experience of Sir John is that he is hardly a punter to whom I would listen for making good bets. He is the sort of adviser to keep away from. We seem to be incapable of having advisers who can offer the same advice two months running. I feel rather concerned that my hon. Friend has to rely upon that advice to make the important decisions that are before him.
The hon. Member for Cheadle also said that reports coming through from people in the European Parliament refer to the fact that there is some doubt whether this country has an industrial will, or a political will, I think he said. Of course, things are often said. After all, the European Parliament is a place where everyone makes his bid. I hope that my hon. Friends who represent us there will also make their bids.
As far as industrial relations is concerned, all the evidence shows that we have a remarkable picture as against many of the other countries. I hope that the hon. Member for Cheadle was able to make that point. That evidence certainly shows that our strike record is very much lower than those other countries which claimed that we have a depressing picture.
I would also draw attention to the fact that we ourselves have made tremendous strides in challenging the frontiers of knowledge in this expertise.
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Herr Gerhard Flamig and I are old friends, but when I heard of his report I felt that he seemed to be losing his way since I have not been there to guide him. Perhaps I ought to go back and guide him more kindly along the road so that he will not accept what the bureaucrats were offering him.
Since the Commission has already made up its mind where it wants the site to be located, it is not surprising that the rapporteurs, willing and able to accept the views of the Commission, have come up with the same conclusion. While we know where Herr Flamig stands, those of us who know him of old perhaps fee] that he has been guided by the Commission.
A point was made by my hon. Friend drawing attention to Soviet involvement. I wonder whether that has not perhaps played a part in the minds of some of our partners. Whilst we are co-operating with the Soviets in that field, the French ought not be too worried. They tied up with the Soviets a long time ago in other fields of technology and claimed that it was perfectly satisfactory.
I hope that tonight we can offer the Minister best wishes for his fight out on Thursday. This country has a first-class case to make in all respects. I believe that our European colleagues will listen to us. I believe that the Minister will be able to give the assurances they ask for and I believe that we can be successful in having the project sited at Culham.
10.38 p.m.
Mr. John Biffen: I join the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) in wishing the Minister every success in the meeting that he will attend on Thursday, and for a successful outcome to the haggle in the negotiations which have been proceeding for a long time concerning the siting of the Joint European Torus.
I am certain that it is wholly appropriate that the House should have the opportunity yet again to discuss the Torus before the Council of Ministers meet. While I feel that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch is instinctively right in identifying a certain common purpose between the Assembly and the rapporteurs of the Commission, I think that the cause of Culham is most likely to be served through the Council of Ministers.

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In seeking to fight for Culham in the Council of Ministers the Under-Secretary of State will be able to take with him the unanimous wish of this House that the resolution that it passed on 16th March should be reinforced. That is the purport and tenor of this evening's debate.
I should like to make four quick comments on the document before the House. First, I note the interesting contribution by the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer), drawing upon his authority as Chairman of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, and the questions he posed and the answers he elicited when he was at Culham. Any project which has an infinite beneficial capacity, with infinite risk, is almost certain to lead to infinite cost. I therefore welcomed the hard-headed accountant's comment which came from my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth). I hope that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch will not think that we are being ledger clerks, but the House of Commons never does such useful work as when its Members occasionally act as ledger clerks over projects of this potential magnitude.
The Thirty-Fourth Report from the Select Committee on European Secondary Legislation observed:
"An upper limit of 232 mua is proposed, compared with the 124 mua currently quoted in Decision 76/345/Euratom."
That is interesting, because when we last debated this matter, the Under-Secretary of State said:
"The Commission has estimated that the construction phase of JET will cost 135 million units of account—£56 million—but we think that it will be more than that, nearly £70 million."—[Official Report, 16th March, 1976; Vol. 907, c. 1277.]
That was an increase of nearly 25 per cent. which the Government thought was in prospect. The change in the indicated upper limit is an increase of about 80 per cent. I would tell my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West that that is how it begins. We are told that it is an upper limit and that it may be undershot, but I will believe that when it happens once.
The House is entitled to know what factors have led to this substantial up-
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ward revision in a fairly short period. Much of the debate has proceeded on the assumption that a project of this magnitude could hope to have a chance of success only if it were sited where consideration of technology indicated to be the most appropriate. If it were the product of a haggle, of a trade-off, and were to be located with other considerations held in regard, the possibility of success would be seriously infringed. That was a widespread belief—I do not think that it was peculiar to this country within the Community—and naturally one is anxious because the whole concept of the Torus is bound to be affected by which site is chosen.
My second point relates to the implications for the host country. Obviously the unanimous voice of the House tonight is that the United Kingdom should be the host country, but what considerations may flow from that in terms of impact upon our own domestic law? My right hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) has asked what are the contingent liabilities on termination of the project. I should also like to know whether the Government have now concluded what in their Explanatory Memorandum they call the "consideration" which is being given to
"… the implications for UK law of the immunities and privileges which could attach to a joint undertaking under Article 48 and Annex III of the Euratom Treaty."
As I read it, the Community document makes provision, under paragraph 3.1.1 and 3.1.2 for management bodies which so far as I can see would be free of taxation. I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary of State would indicate whether we have in prospect the establishment of an enclave of tax-free scientists and what consequences are thought to derive from that. This is not a decision that we should embark upon without being fully conscious of all the consequences, if my interpretation is correct.
The third point I wish to raise with the Under-Secretary is by way of confirmation. I think he is entirely correct in believing that the siting decision should rest with the Council of Ministers and not with the Torus council operating on a qualified majority. The reasons were underlined in a persuasive speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton

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(Mr. Forman). The Under-Secretary is right to fight for this decision to rest with the Council of Ministers. It is of that order of magnitude. I hope that it will not be necessary for it to be resolved at one of the meetings of the Heads of Government. I think that the Council of Ministers in one guise or another is the appropriate forum for this decision.
I turn to the fourth and final point, which I do not wish to elaborate at any length—the virtues of Culham. They were put in a very compelling fashion by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton) in the debate on 16th March, and his words bear repeating:
"We earnestly hope that in the interests of British technology and this considerable amount of experience that Britain has by way of a lead over the rest of Europe, the Secretary of State will take up the challenge to sell Culham's case strongly and convincingly on its merits, and do so not as a political package."—[Official Report, 16th March, 1976; Vol. 907, c. 1274.]
Those ringing words of faith in Culham hardly need underlining by me in the light of what has been said in this debate.
I have no wish to disparage whatever may happen at Ispra, and I am certain that the French have an interest in Cadarache and the Germans in Garching. That is natural and appropriate. However, on almost any judgment the case for Culham, certainly in technological terms, must stand pre-eminent. To reinforce the words uttered by the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shore-ditch, I do not think that there are any Reds under the Culham beds and I cannot believe that the contrary belief has influenced any of our continental partners.
The House is rightly proud of those areas of our industrial, commercial and scientific community where there is a proven record of excellence and success, and in assenting to the Government's motion tonight the House is in its way seeking to strengthen their hands and to underline the virtues and the advantages that undoubtedly rest with Culham.
10.50 p.m.
Mr. Eadie: I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the way in which they have approached this important issue. I shall endeavour to answer some of the important points raised during our constructive and helpful debate.
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Before I deal with the specific points which have been raised by hon. Members, I should like to take a few moments to remind the House why we attach so much importance to the success of the Community fusion programme.
It is now widely accepted that unless fast reactors are introduced on a large scale in all the major industrial countries, uranium supplies will be insufficient to enable nuclear fission to meet the world's growth of energy demand.
The production of energy by the thermonuclear fusion of the relatively abundant isotopes of hydrogen offers a possible alternative in the long term. If the fusion process can be made to work, it will have the advantage that it is unlikely to give rise to some of the environmental problems associated with nuclear fission—notably those of long-lived radioactive wastes.
Furthermore, it is not fraught with great danger in case of accidents, and its fuels—deuterium and tritium—are of no use to terrorists.
When one examines the possible sites one finds that only four candidate sites now effectively remain in the running, Cadarache, in France; Culham in the United Kingdom; Garching, in Germany; and Ispra, in Italy. As I indicated earlier, the Government have consistently maintained that JET must be sited at an existing fusion laboratory to provide essential plasma physics and engineering support.
Ispra is not a fusion laboratory and has no relevant scientific background. The case for siting JET there is based primarily on infrastructure considerations which, although important, are secondary to the scientific success of the project. Similarly, Cadarache is not a fusion laboratory. However, the French have undertaken to move their fusion laboratory from Fontenay, near Paris, to Cadarache. But such a move seems to us to carry a risk that essential support might not be available when needed by the JET team. Cadarache, as yet, also lacks adequate electricity supplies for JET.
Garching, like Culham, is well qualified scientifically, but we understand that if JET is sited there the Germans will have to cut back appreciably other fusion work which is important to the Community programme.

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We have made clear on a number of occasions that we think that Culham is the best of the candidate sites and we continue strongly to press its claims. It is particularly well qualified scientifically. Since 1970 its fusion programme has been directed towards Tokamak devices. Culham gave up its own plans to build a large Tokamak, at the request of the European Community and with the approval of the United Kingdom Government, so that its own effort could be included in the team designing JET for Europe as a whole.
Therefore, for JET to be built at Culham would be a natural evolution of the laboratory's programme. Furthermore, we consider that it is time that a major Community project was sited in this country. We have none at present, although we have been a member of the Communities since 1973.
Hon. Members will recall that the European Parliament has also considered the question of the JET site and has recommended that the site should be
"an existing large research centre in this specific field that has an attractive location for qualified researchers and a particularly favourable infrastructure."
Culham meets these criteria. It is one of Europe's leading fusion laboratories and has the advantage of being close to the academic and cultural life of Oxford.
We do not regard as appropriate the Commission's proposal to choose the site for JET on the advice of the JET Council, which was intended to form part of the management structure for the JET project once it had been established. It would comprise senior energy research officials from each of the countries which have contracts of association with Euratom, together with representatives of the Commission. In the Government's view, the question of siting is of such importance that it should be reserved to Ministers.
The hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Normanton) hoped that the Government did not have a partisan approach to the question. I never apologise for trying to put forward the good things about my own country and to describe how we think we have so much to offer. I have consistently said that the European Council, to which I have now been three times on this issue, should deem the project
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vital in the interests of future generations, and that as a European body we should give a commitment to the whole of Europe that we are determined to proceed with this technological adventure. I said that as a country we did not give way in our belief that Culham was the best site, but that we were prepared to see applied the test of what was technologically the best site. The chairman of the Council said that that was the most constructive approach of any member country in dealing with the question of JET.
The hon. Gentleman talked about a coherent energy policy for Europe. It will be generally agreed that Europe has no energy policy as yet, although it is trying to arrive at one. The hon. Gentleman said that we had no energy policy in this country, but we have probably now come nearer to having one than we have for the past decade or more. We have made a whole range of policy decisions, and we must integrate many of them. We have stated the rôle that coal, oil, gas and nuclear power will play. Although we have not reached the pinnacle of perfection, no hon. Members going to Europe should be in any way ashamed of the work being done in their own country in striving for an energy policy. I go even further. The United Kingdom is on the record as having said that we are prepared to make a contribution towards any efforts that Europe may make to get an energy policy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has tried to make a contribution to that role. We have no reason to deride our efforts on energy policy.
Admittedly our nuclear power programme has to some extent been disappointing. We should remember, however, that the energy that we get from nuclear power makes a substantial contribution to the energy potential and resources of this country. It is well known that other countries have had problems with their nuclear power and energy programmes. Only last week we read that two major countries in Europe had to decide to scale down their nuclear power programmes. This is something that we should not be concerned about.
The whole House will agree with the hon. Member for Cheadle when he talks about "the brilliant brains" that we have in Britain. Of course I endorse that. I

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have visited Culham twice, and have met these brilliant brains. My second visit coincided with that of Dr. Brunner, Commissioner for Research, Science and Education and I think that he was impressed with what he saw.
I want to correct one point made by the hon. Gentleman. It is I, and not my right hon. Friend, who should be going to Brussels on Thursday. I do not know what has happened, but I understand that I may not have the opportunity after all. I regret that, because I really do believe that Britain has the opportunity of landing this project.
Reference was made to industrial relations. Hon. Members should acquaint themselves with the figures for industrial relations in this country over the past two years. They will see that we have nothing to be ashamed of.
I cannot understand the point that the hon. Member for Cheadle made about Dounreay. I understand that there have been problems with every fast-breeder reactor in Europe. Some of those problems were predicted by the Dounreay team. I think that we have a fine fast-breeder reactor at Dounreay, and we should be proud of it. When dealing with high technology like this we should not be ashamed to say that we are prepared to keep trying until we get it right.
The hon. Gentleman talked about Dragon. He said that concern had been expressed that we had damaged out chances of getting JET by withdrawing from Dragon. I must put the record straight by stressing that there is no connection between the two projects. Dragon was an OECD experimental high temperature reactor project, based at Winfrith. We did not withdraw. We were fully prepared to contribute, through the Community, to any fresh extension. Regrettably, our partners were unwilling to agree to this arrangement and the project ended on its scheduled date.
The hon. Member for Cheadle made some comment about the pound and devaluation. The fall in the pound does not at present affect the cost of JET in the United Kingdom. Euratom transactions are carried out on a fixed exchange rate in which £1 is equal to 2·4 units of account. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that that is not a point we would raise.
Mr. Biffen: Does the Minister agree that a fall in the pound on the international exchange should make a site in the United Kingdom more attractive than a Continental site?
Mr. Eadie: I agree. In the course of his remarks the hon. Member for Cheadle implied that because of our problems Culham would be unattractive—
Mr. Normanton: When the Minister has the chance to read my speech he will see that I was making the same point as that made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen). A fall in the pound on the international exchange will mean that European currency will buy more in Britain. I put this forward as a bull point in favour of the siting of the JET project in Culham. The hon. Gentleman will find that I am correct.
Mr. Eadie: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, and I am sorry if there has been any misunderstanding.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) was right to point out that there was no certainty that attempts at fusion would be successful. On the other hand, we have to be on the side of the scientists, if research and development were to be judged solely by the criteria of success they would come to a standstill. We must be prepared to be adventurous and to realise that there may be losers. We cannot come up with winners all the time.
There was reference to the Zeta project, which I remember well. There is, however, a distinction to be drawn here. There is a difference between embarking upon high technology projects alone and in co-operation with others. I have long been a proponent of technological collaboration, not only in Europe but throughout the world. This is a difficult project, but I believe that it has the best chance of success at Culham. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East was right to draw attention to the fact that Russia and America are pursuing the same approach.
The hon. Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman), in a forthright manner, nailed his colours to the mast on this important project. He was correct to say that there will be environmental advantage if we are prepared to pursue this road.

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The right hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Davies) mentioned the subject of decommissioning. He was concerned about assets and liabilities, and he knows that I attach a great deal of importance to resolving, at meetings of the Council of Ministers, the decommissioning problem. If that were to happen, we would not retain not only liabilities but assets—and the assets are far greater than any liabilities.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether there were any problems over decommissioning. I wish to put on record the fact that the Government have consulted the Atomic Energy Authority on the technical and financial implications of decommissioning the JET device and have been advised that the device might simply be sealed at the end of the experimental period, or be dismantled. The latter would be a more expensive option, but it is estimated that the cost would be appreciably below that of the assets. I hope that to some extent I have alleviated the anxieties expressed by the right hon Gentleman.
I was glad that the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) gave wholehearted support to this project, and there was no ambiguity in his words. The hon. Gentleman mentioned four points with which I have already dealt, the most important of which was whether civil servants would be put in a privileged position in regard to taxation. The amenities and privileges granted to a joint undertaking under the Euratom treaty apply only to the joint undertaking and not to its staff. The treaty grants no special privileges, such as exemption from income tax, to staff of a joint undertaking.
The hon. Gentleman concluded by quoting his hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle. I can only say that I accept the sentiment behind that quotation, as I am sure would the whole House. Bearing in mind that the project should have started at the beginning of this year and that the Council on Thursday will be the fourth that I have attended in an effort to get JET moving, the House will understand my personal disappointment that no decision has yet been reached. The JET design team is located at Culham and,
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as hosts for the design phase of the project, we have been especially conscious of the anxieties of the team as the decision has been remitted from one Council to another. We were, therefore, very pleased that the Council was able to agree to the release of 4 million units of account from the JET appropriation to enable the design team to continue work and to place contracts for some site-independent equipment for JET.
I was also very much encouraged by progress at the last Council, which gave cause for hope that the log-jam of JET decisions was beginning to break up. It is a great pity that the start of the project has been so long delayed and I give the assurance that I shall be pressing hard for a decision on Thursday.
We should not get the question of delay out of perspective. JET is a project designed to run for 10 to 15 years, and the commercial exploitation of fusion power is perhaps 50 years ahead. We need not take too serious a view of a one-year delay at the start. It is far more important that the project should get off on the right footing. As the House knows, it is the most expensive single experiment that the Community has ever contemplated—and one of the most difficult. It is therefore vitally important that it should be sited where it has the best possible chance of success.
We believe that this means at Culham.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of Commission Document No. R/2284/76 and of the Government's view that Culham is the best site for JET.

STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGIONAL AFFAIRS
Ordered,
That, during the proceedings on the matter of North West Affairs, the Standing Committee on Regional Affairs have leave to sit twice on Wednesday 17th November; and that notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 64 (Meetings of Standing Committees) the second such sitting shall not commence before Five o'clock, nor continue after Eight o'clock.—[Mr. James Hamilton.]

COAL RESERVES (VALE OF BELVOIR)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. James Hamilton.]
11.16 p.m.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I am grateful for the opportunity of having a short debate on a problem that is very serious both for my constituents and nationally—a problem that the House will have to consider at some stage.
The debate is concerned with the huge reserves of coal, currently estimated at about 450 million tons, which have been fully prospected beneath the Vale of Belvoir in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, partly under my constituency and partly under the constituencies of Melton, Grantham and Rutland and Stamford.
The reactions to this huge discovery of workable coal have already indicated the unfortunate dilemma between conflicting interests which faces those who have to make the decisions on the exploitation of coal.
There are those who welcome the discovery of this huge quantity of indigenous energy as a valuable resource for this country and make comparisons between it and the Forties oilfield, claiming that great advantages will flow from its successful exploitation.
Unfortunately, the coal lies beneath the Vale of Belvoir, which is an area of considerable natural beauty. To those hon. Members who do not know it—and one of its charms is that it is not well known—I can say that it comprises many small villages, such as Granby, Upper Broughton, and Hickling, whose very names give an accurate impression of the sort of rural charm they represent.
There is also very valuable agricultural land, which is a shrinking asset in this country as well as a considerable source of recreation and pleasure for those who live in the nearby towns.
So we have this great new source of energy, but it lies in an area of great beauty and value which gives recreation and pleasure to many people.
We know how this country has faced the problem before. The issues raised by
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the problems of the Vale of Belvoir put it on almost the same level as the Channel Tunnel, Maplin Airport and the motorway network. I see this debate as a preliminary public discussion of the procedures to be used to sort out this dilemma successfully and to find out what will be the procedures in making decisions in the national as well as the local interest. I want to ensure that the procedures will be good enough to discover who will be responsible for making decisions at each stage and to learn what opportunities there will be for public participation.
I am grateful that there will be a ministerial reply and also that my hon. Friends the Members for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) and New Forest (Mr. McNair-Wilson), who speak for the Opposition on these matters, are here to consider the problem.
The first question to ask is whether there is an economic case for spending large sums of money on the exploitation of this coal. There must be a limit to the amount of coal required, though I recognise that a new future is emerging for it in present circumstances. Who will decide on the economic case for the exploitation of the coal? Will it be the National Coal Board alone? I assume not. Will it be through collaboration between the Board and the sponsoring Minister? If so, will he be answerable to the public through this Parliament?
If, but only if, the answer to the first question is "Yes"—that there is a case in the national interest for the exploitation of this coal seam—we have to consider the environmental questions.
Obviously, if the Board decides to go ahead a planning application will be made. I assume that the issues are too great for the ordinary procedure and that the Minister will call for a full public inquiry, and that the local authorities and our constituents can then make their representations. But that would be a procedure relating only to the environmental issues.
I should like to be assured that at some stage we can devise adequate procedures and adequate means of debate for weighing the energy questions and the environmental questions together, so that the matter can be looked at and assessed as a whole. It may be, for instance, that the energy advantages to this country

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will be so overwhelming and the environmental damage so slight that it will be quite a straightforward matter to proceed with the exploitation of the coal. But if, as many of my constituents fear, it turns out to be a marginal and somewhat speculative advantage for the energy needs of this country, and involves disastrous, ruinous and irreversible damage to the environment of the area, somebody has to decide when the balance lies in that way.
Who will decide the balance? The National Coal Board will decide on the coal position. The Department of Energy must take a view of energy needs. The Treasury, I hope, will take a view on the investment and the vast borrowing by a public corporation that is envisaged. The Department of the Environment will have its planning rôle. My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham)—if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker—will put forward ideas on a form of inquiry that will encompass all these questions. Public debate must take a view of the whole picture. The final decision must be a Government decision for which Ministers are answerable to the House, because of the great importance of getting these issues correctly decided.
Why do I say that the decision must be taken on this scale? What can be the doubt about the value of the coal and the wisdom of the Board in deciding to exploit it? Why do I not regard it simply as black wealth and assume that the experts will decide how best to exploit it? Why should there be planning supervision or interference, even if it is on behalf of constituents, in terms of saying "Pause a moment and let us see whether the case can be made out"?
I say that it cannot just be left to the National Coal Board, because the Board is obviously completely committed to the furtherance and development of the coal industry. I should be shocked if it were not. It is the Board's duty to be totally committed to the maximum development of the industry in this country. It is not the Board's primary duty to look at the alternatives or to consider the interests of rival views or the wider national interest. It has its "Plan for Coal" for the next 10 years. It has its plan for 150 million tons by the end of the century.
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The Board wants to replace the old, narrow seams with new pits and new seams. Its ambition is boundless.
When the Secretary of State spoke to this House on 19th February 1975 he said, at column 1348, that he was envisaging an investment of £600 million for the next 10 years under the "Plan for Coal". A recent report in the Daily Telegraph forecast investment of £6,000 million by the end of the century in the development of the coal industry. The Board has Selby, Belvoir—which it expects to develop—and new finds in the Firth of Forth. It is committed to the maximum exploitation of these huge coal resources that it is finding.
I am not anti-coal; I represent part of Nottinghamshire, which is a coal mining county. My father worked down the mine and I know many who do. I have always had constituents who are miners or who work in the coal industry. But someone must question the sole judgment of the Board, and I want to be reassured by the Minister that he and the Department of Energy are weighing up the possible alternatives.
We must also take into account the position of the gas industry, the oil industry and the nuclear power industry. I listened to part of the earlier debate on the JET project and heard the Minister assure us that he is working towards an energy policy. I realise that that involves a great deal of forecasting of long-term energy needs. This is a notoriously difficult business, because most of the forecasts in this field have turned out to be wrong. But on all views at the moment we expect this country to be self-sufficient in energy by the early 1980s. Thereafter, the Board expects that as oil and gas are developed there will be a shortfall which will enable it to increase its market share. My constituents and I need to be persuaded of that. We need to know whether there is a safe basis for investing so much money when ever-increasing reserves of oil are being discovered in the North Sea.
The finds of natural gas have consistently been underestimated. I understand that recent reports indicate that there is at least half as much again as was first anticipated. We also have a huge oil potential with the new oilfields that have been discovered. Our nuclear energy potential was discussed in the preceding debate.

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The Board must make out a case, and the Department of Energy must decide whether it has made out a good case before giving the go-ahead. We must be satisfied that coal will increase its market share after the 1980s and that there is a need for the Belvoir reserves.
The Board, when pressed, referred to the export potential of coal. I must say that I find that difficult to accept. My eyebrows went up at the thought of a revival of the coal trade. The Belvoir seam lies in deep, heavy water-bearing strata. Out deep-mined coal is expensive to produce. Cheaper mined coal can be obtained from Australia, America and, potentially, Brazil and Botswana, which, by the end of the century, will be competing effectively from their own indigenous supplies.
I should like to leave time for my hon. Friend the Member for Melton, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I have indicated my views on this matter. The Board has not produced its final feasibility studies or committed itself to going ahead, but clearly it will do so. Before we charge ahead with this great investment and before the Board produces ambitious plans and we get to the environmental and planning stage, I want to be reassured that the Government will want to be satisfied that this investment is justified, not speculative, and that nobody will rush into a decision that may do irreversible damage to a beautiful and attractive part of the country for reasons which may turn out to be specious by the time that the future contemplated by the Board has arrived.
11.28 p.m.
Mr. Michael Latham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) for allowing me a few minutes to intervene in a debate on a great environmental and in no way party matter. I believe that we are likely to see a row arising out of this matter which will make Cublington look like a tea party, so it is important to get these facts firmly on record.
I should like to make four brief points. First, the people of the Vale of Belvoir are overwhelmingly opposed to a coal mine there. The Vale of Belvoir Parish Councils Association has held 15 public meetings at which the National Coal Board's plans have been fully explained. The meetings have been packed to the doors,
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and there has been virtually unanimous opposition to this proposal. If consultation means anything to the NCB, it should take account of that reaction. Indeed, 50 members of the constituencies of myself and my hon. Friend have come to listen to this debate this evening.
Secondly, there is a need for Department of Energy Ministers to be seen to be impartial in this matter. I had to pick up the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes), when he was Under-Secretary, on remarks that he made in Leicester recently, following which he wrote to me on 17th August saying that the Department was not committed to the mining of coal in the Vale of Belvoir or in any other specific area.
I also had occasion to query remarks made in the House by the Minister of State on 25th October, following which he wrote to me confirming that the Department stood by the undertaking given by the hon. Member for Widnes. In view of his own remarks in Nottingham recently, I hope that the Under-Secretary will repeat that assurance tonight.
We cannot permit there to be any suspicion in the minds of the public that a deal has already been done with the NCB and the Department of Energy to mine the coal, and that any planning inquiry will be a farce. Energy Ministers ought to have an invisible profile on this matter. They should remember that the Ombudsman and the courts are available if there is any reason to suppose that the quasi-judicial functions of the Department of Energy are being usurped. If the NCB has been sending written timetables of its proposed development or any other information to the Department of Energy, Ministers might remember that the Ombudsman is able to look at any such files in retrospect. Of course, I assume that the Ministers themselves have never given any encouragement, formal or informal, to the NCB to proceed with the project. That would be quite improper. Doubtless the Minister will confirm that no such action has been taken.
Thirdly, I have expressed the need for a planning inquiry commission to be set up under Sections 47 and 48 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. I made that proposal to the Secretary of State for the Environment on 4th

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October. After all, the doubts expressed by British Gas and others about a so-called energy gap represent a new and important dimension in the energy argument which needs full public examination.
As the Secretary of State for Energy himself said to the Select Committee considering the SGHWR programme,
"One of the most interesting things that came out of the Energy Conference—not new to those who follow it carefully—was a direct attack by the gas industry on the concept of an energy gap. Certainly, if we are to develop, as I intend to do, a national energy strategy, there has got to be an agreement, at any rate about broad forecasts, within certain parameters, so that we know exactly what the gap is, when it will come and how we might fill it."
If that is the present state of ministerial knowledge—and I accept that the Minister was very open and frank with the Select Committee—it is all the more important that this matter should now be fully aired by a planning inquiry commission.
Finally, may we clear away the argument that resisting the Vale coal mine, as we have been doing, means unemployed miners elsewhere in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire? When I asked Sir Derek Ezra, recently, for a full list of the life of each of the pits in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire, he replied that the Belvoir pit was not linked to the closure of specific collieries and, indeed, that there was "no programme of colliery closures".
These matters are important. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for raising them. This is the beginning of the public debate. I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments.
11.32 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and his hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham) for their contributions. I am sure that we all now welcome this opportunity to discuss the Vale of Belvoir, and its possible role in our national energy policy.
None of us present can be unaware of the change that has occurred in the fortunes and prospects of the coal industry in the past three years. This change
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has occurred partly because of the impact of foreign events, but also—and this is an important point—through the determination of both Government and industry to respond positively to these events.
The foreign events to which I refer are, of course, the Arab-Israeli War of 1973 and the subsequent quintupling of oil prices. Coal's response has been the "Plan for Coal". After 15 years of decline, the industry now faces a new future in which it can expand and play a vital part in supplying our future energy needs.
I need scarcely remind the House that this country will shortly have the capacity for a net self-sufficiency in energy. Coal will play a substantial part in this.
Hon. Members know that indigenous energy supplies make an enormous contribution to the well-being of our economy, so I shall not dwell on the benefit to our balance of payments; hon. Members know that already. But they also know that our supplies of North Sea oil and gas are finite: they will not last for ever. By present reckoning, supplies from the North Sea will be diminishing in the 1990s. If we are not, once again, to put too much reliance on imports, probably even more expensive in real terms than at present, we must have a healthy coal industry which is ready to help to fill the gap. Indeed, a prosperous coal industry may be the linchpin of a prosperous British economy in the years ahead.
In 1974, the Government, the NCB and the mining unions agreed the Board's "Plan for Coal" and its production target of 135 million tons a year by 1985. Now, as hon. Members may know, we are already starting to look beyond that—to the rest of the century.
In doing that, it is perhaps worth noting that the objectives of "Plan for Coal" are still seen as valid. The details may have changed—but the target is still expected to be achieved. But, if no further plans are made, production must inevitably decline as pits exhaust after 1985. So "Plan for Coal 2000" will be crucial to all of us.
Coal, like all extractive industries, has to run in order to stand still. Exploration and the exploiting of new reserves are a constant necessity in order merely to

1077
replace those which are exhausted year by year.
Already, under "Plan for Coal", we are expanding capacity from existing pits by over 20 million tons. Even so, we have had to reckon on finding a further 20 million tons capacity from totally new mines. If capacity is to be maintained throughout this century, we must continue to invest in new capacity. By next year the Board's exploration programme will have proved all the reserves necessary for "Plan for Coal". But a continuing programme of exploration will be needed beyond then so that decisions can be taken on investment after 1985.
I mentioned earlier that "Plan for Coal" envisages 20 million tons of capacity to be provided by entirely new mines. Decisions have so far been taken on only one major new mine—that to exploit the reserves of coal in the Selby coal field. Work started on the development of that very rich field last month.
Some people have suggested that Selby's 10 million tons of output will be sufficient production from new mines. Many have asked why the Board should wish to create other new mines when we have, at present, stocks of over 30 million tons of coal. Once again, the answer is in terms of long-term need. Selby is expected to take 10 years to reach its full output. One must anticipate a similar time-scale for any other comparable projects.
This is the background against which we must consider the reserves at Belvoir. I commend the interest that the hon. Members for local constituencies are taking, but we must be very careful not to jump the gun.
Suggestions have been made that my Department has prejudged the issue and is exerting pressure to push ahead and mine in the Vale of Belvoir regardless of planning procedures. I have been criticised myself for suggesting that the nation would need the coal from Belvoir—a project that I have heard described as a potential rape of the countryside.
To my critics I would say this: first, let us keep sex out of the coal industry, please. Second, Coal Board investigations have shown that the Vale houses about 450 million tons of coal. That coal—that indigenous coal—is money in the bank for Britain. Third, I am an
1078
environmentalist. I am not in any way prejudging the outcome of any future inquiry into legitimate objections to the exploitation of the coal in the Vale of Belvoir. Our democratic system will present every opportunity to people to make their views heard and have them considered.
If hon. Members go to coal sites up and down the country—as I do—they will see what a fine record the NCB has in coming up to scratch from an environmentalist's point of view.
I am an Energy Minister. Of course, I think that leaving 450 million tons of coal in the ground would be wasteful. That position is not incompatible with being on the side of the environmentalists. But I accept that the planning procedures must be observed. The Government, and particularly the Department of Energy, have not adopted a position either for or against mining in the Vale.
But we do, of course, welcome the discovery and proving of the reserves Belvoir's coal could make an enormous contribution to this country's well-being. But this is simply a statement of a possibility and is not a forecast of what will happen. The distinction is important, if only to save the opponents of the idea from wasting their energy in attacking a non-existent enemy.
No decisions have been taken by Government. The NCB itself is still assessing the possibilities of the coalfield and the proposals it might make. There is still every opportunity for open debate. Indeed, the Board has shown itself extremely willing to consult and inform interested parties. I know that it has been in contact with over 40 local authorities and organisations.
Further explorations and provings of the field have overtaken the original feasibility report which it showed to local authorities earlier this year. The Board tells me that, given the greater knowledge of the reserves, it is formulating an alternative scheme for recovering the coal. This illustrates the problem inherent in consultation over such a complex scheme. The Board is anxious to make all possible information available to those with local interests, but if that information is premature it can be falsified by later events and discoveries. This underlines the wisdom of waiting for the

1079
Board to finalise its proposals. There will still be ample opportunity for debate thereafter.
This brings me to the nub of the matter in terms of the debate this evening. All of us, whether we feel instinctively for or against the idea of mining in the Vale, would be foolish to pass judgment before even the Board—let alone ourselves—knows what it wishes to do. Safeguards do exist, specifically designed to protect those who feel threatened by activities such as coal mining coming into their areas.
If the Board does apply to mine, it must submit a firm and detailed project setting out its intentions. It must submit itself to the judgment of the planning authority or a planning inquiry. Such an inquiry would not be blinded by visions of vast coal wealth, nor would it be pressured by the Government. It would hear reasoned objections which, no doubt, would be forthcoming, and it most certainly would take an impartial view of the benefits and detriments that would be brought to the area by such a scheme, be they economic, social or environmental.
The Government, too, will have a deep interest in all the arguments put forward. If planning agreement is forthcoming, my Department will be making its own economic judgment of the NCB's proposals and their contribution to our energy needs.
Mr. Stephen Hastings Mr. Stephen Hastings (Mid-Bedfordshire) rose—
Mr. Eadie: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to reply to the debate.
We understand the feelings of those whose lives would be affected by a new mine in the Vale, just as we understand the contribution that the reserves there could make to a prosperous coal industry in Britain if they prove in the final analysis to be as worth while as they seem on the evidence now available. That evidence has to be substantiated by the Board and, if it is, will have to be balanced against the weight of environmental objections at any planning inquiry. It would be wrong of me, however, not to state my conviction that the Board is also deeply concerned about the effects
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on the environment and would do its very best to meet local objections.
Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Do I understand that only after the Board gets planning consent the Government will see whether there is any advantage to the economy of exploiting the coal? Is it after planning consent has been obtained that the Department will make its judgment?
Mr. Eadie: I do not have time to reply to that. The matter is a little complicated. [Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Hastings) will allow me to reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe, who is concerned about this matter and has made a constructive speech.
Mr. Hastings: We are all concerned.
Mr. Eadie: The hon. Member for Rushcliffe initiated the debate, and he is entitled to a reply to the constructive points that he put forward. The facts will be considered when planning consent is put into being. Economic judgments will be applied by the Government. There must be an economic judgment. If the hon. Gentleman is in doubt about the matter I suggest that he writes to me, and I shall be only too pleased to reply to him in greater detail than I have time to do tonight.
I am afraid I have not been able to be too specific about Belvoir. That, of course, is precisely because I do not want to prejudge the issue. I can, however, assure the hon. Gentlemen who have spoken tonight that my Department wishes there to be a full and fair debate on the Board's proposals when they are put forward.
I would like to finish by saying that the decision on the Vale of Belvoir, when it is taken, will obviously be one of very great importance—great importance to the nation, and great importance to all who live in the Vale. We are talking here of an enormous potential contribution to the nation's wealth—that is the nation's interest—but we are also talking of the rights of individuals to a full and fair hearing. Great as is the prize of the Vale of Belvoir, and no one can deny that the proving of reserves of 450 million tons does offer a great prize, there can be no question of riding roughshod over

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the rights of those individuals whose lives and livelihoods will be affected. There are checks and balances in our system and it is right there should be. When a decision is taken about the Vale of Belvoir, I am sure that it will be seen to be the result of an exhaustive examination of all the relevant factors.
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at fourteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.

HOUSE OF COMMONS
  Lobbies (Smoking)
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  Stationery Supply
  Stationery Supply
  HOUSE OF LORDS
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  MINISTERIAL SALARIES (INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS)
  MINISTERIAL SALARIES (INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS)
  GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
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CIVIL SERVICE
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  Government Advertising
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HOME DEPARTMENT
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  Government Announcements (Television Broadcasts)
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  Police Pay (London)
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OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
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EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
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ENERGY
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  Coal Industry (Employees' Travel Allowances)
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  Paraffin
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  Nuclear Reactors
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  Ministerial Appointments
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ENVIRONMENT
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  Royal Parks (Lake Cleaning)
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  Members' Correspondence
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  Wild Life Conservation (Scotland)
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  Gibraltar (Civilian Employees)
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  Central Lancashire New Town
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  Location of Offices Bureau
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  Constructional Steelwork Industry
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TRANSPORT
  Speed Limits
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  Rochford and Maldon (Rate Rebates)
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  Commuting
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  Roadline UK Limited
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  Railway Locomotives
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SCOTLAND
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  Bulk Transport of Milk Order
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AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
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  Cattle Exports (European Community)
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  Land Bank
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  Food and Drinks Industry
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  Cattle Imports and Exports (Republic of Ireland)
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WALES
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FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
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DEFENCE
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  Tax Exemption Certificates
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PRICES AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
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  Butter Subsidy
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EMPLOYMENT
  Herbert Small Tools Limited, Falmouth
  Herbert Small Tools Limited, Falmouth
  New Year's Day 1978
  New Year's Day 1978
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  Courtaulds Ltd.
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  Factory Inspectorate
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  Control Dataset (Kirkby)
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  Hopkinsons Ltd. (Huddersfield)
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TRADE
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  Airports (Review)
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  Industrial Participation (Bullock Committee)
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  Shirts
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  Retail Sales
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  British Overseas Trade Board
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  Textiles
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  Tourism
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  Aircraft Crash (Falkland Islands)
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  Cars
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  Wine
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  National Film Finance Corporation
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SOCIAL SERVICES
  Invalid Vehicles
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  Medical Expenses (Council of Europe Proposal)
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  Prescriptions (Collection Expenses)
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  Drug Prescriptions
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  Social Security Advertising
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SOCIAL SERVICES
  National Health Service Training
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  National Health Service Building Costs
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  Children's Allowances and Benefits
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  Benefit Claimants (Travel Expenses)
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  Squatters (Benefit)
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  Benefit Claimants (Telephone Bills)
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  Electricity and Gas Bills
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  Benefit Payments (Furniture Payments)
  Benefit Payments (Furniture Payments)
  Fraudulent Claims (Prosecutions)
  Fraudulent Claims (Prosecutions)
  Washing Machine Payments
  Washing Machine Payments
  Benefit (Republic of Ireland Citizens)
  Benefit (Republic of Ireland Citizens)
  Benefit Claimants (Holidays)
  Benefit Claimants (Holidays)
  Benefit Increases
  Benefit Increases
  Spectacles
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  Perinatal and Infant Mortality
  Perinatal and Infant Mortality
  Members' Correspondence
  Members' Correspondence
  Child Benefit
  Child Benefit
  Widows' Pensions
  Widows' Pensions
  Supplementary Benefit Claims
  Supplementary Benefit Claims
  Emigrants
  Emigrants
INDUSTRY
  Small Businesses
  Small Businesses
  Computers
  Computers
  Courtaulds Ltd.
  Courtaulds Ltd.
  Company Share Registers (Survey)
  Company Share Registers (Survey)
  Shell-Esso (Separation Plant)
  Shell-Esso (Separation Plant)
  Motor Cars (Imports)
  Motor Cars (Imports)
  Aero-engines
  Aero-engines
  Industrial Development Certificates
  Industrial Development Certificates
  Paper and Board
  Paper and Board
  Staffordshire
  Staffordshire
  Yorkshire and Humberside
  Yorkshire and Humberside
  National Enterprise Board
  National Enterprise Board
  Railway Workshops
  Railway Workshops
  Government Chemist's Laboratory (Removal)
  Government Chemist's Laboratory (Removal)
  Wool Textiles
  Wool Textiles
  Knitwear
  Knitwear
  Scientific Instruments and Machine Tools
  Scientific Instruments and Machine Tools
  Printing Machinery
  Printing Machinery
  Clothing
  Clothing
  Foundries
  Foundries
  Drop Forgings
  Drop Forgings
  Rubber Processing
  Rubber Processing
  Iron and Steel
  Iron and Steel
  Chemicals
  Chemicals
  Process Plant Fabrication
  Process Plant Fabrication
  North-West Region
  North-West Region
  Nationalisation
  Nationalisation
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Equal Opportunities Commission
  Equal Opportunities Commission
  Forests
  Forests
  Police Authority
  Police Authority
  Cattle Imports and Exports (Republic of Ireland)
  Cattle Imports and Exports (Republic of Ireland)
  Fair Employment Agency
  Fair Employment Agency
  Murders
  Murders
  Public Expenditure Reductions
  Public Expenditure Reductions
  Economic Situation
  Economic Situation
  European Farm Fund Grants
  European Farm Fund Grants
  Meat Industry
  Meat Industry

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Sheffield.

MERCHANT SHIPPING CONVENTION: ILO CONFERENCE
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how the British delegations voted at the ILO Conference on 29th October 1976 on the proposed Convention providing for minimum standards of employment and safety on merchant ships; what was the vote; and whether they will ratify the convention at the earliest possible moment.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the United Kingdom delegates voted in favour. The vote was 160 in favour, none against and 67 abstentions. Ratification must be preceded by wide consultation to establish beyond doubt that the law and practice of the country are in complete conformity with the provisions of the Convention. In accordance with normal practice the Government's intentions in relation to all the instruments adopted by the Conference will be announced as soon as possible in a White Paper.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, while welcoming that Answer, may I ask the Minister whether he will confirm that this Convention deals with ships sailing under flags of convenience, which are often substandard and employ cheap labour? Would the noble Lord also say whether the Convention guarantees to sailors continuity of work and paid holidays, and that it ends racial discrimination on the issue of equal pay?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I can confirm that the Convention provides minimum standards for the ships of all
970
countries and therefore would include the ships of convenience mentioned by my noble friend. I am afraid I do not have details of the Convention, but I can say that it deals mainly with two issues: the safety of the crew and the living conditions of the crew.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord could tell me how far the minimum conditions imposed by the Convention are in advance of those already imposed by regulations on British flag vessels? My second question is: Supposing the countries involved in flags of convenience do not adhere to the Convention, what method of enforcing the standards of the Convention, if any, is available?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I understand that the Convention is not more advanced than the conditions which have to prevail on our ships at the moment, but it contains a new feature for enforcement. If any ship is in port in a particular country and that country receives a complaint from the ship which relates to health or safety, after inspection the country by whom the complaint is received can immediately notify the country concerned and the ILO, and insist upon the matter being put right forthwith.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, following the question which was put by the noble and learned Lord, may I ask the Minister: Is it not very disturbing that there were 67 abstentions when this matter was considered, including, strangely, the East European countries?—although the Yugoslav trade union movement had the courage to vote against their Government. In these circumstances, if only ten ratifications are required for the Convention, can we, with our Western European Community partners, seek to get the Convention accepted on a much greater scale so that it may be enforced?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, we can always seek to do it, but experience has shown that it is not always easy when we are seeking to get the Eastern Europeans to do things. I can only say that we entirely agree with the Convention and shall use the whole of our influence to have it ratified by as many countries as possible.

BANKRUPTCY PETITIONS
2.40 p.m.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how the increase in the number of bankruptcy petitions last year—24 per cent. in the High Court and 25 per cent. in the county courts—compares with that in other EEC countries.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I regret that figures comparable with those for bankruptcy petitions in the United Kingdom are not available for other EEC countries.
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether, in planning their future programme of finance for this country, the Government will give consideration to these small firms and others which have been made bankrupt? Would not the noble Lord agree that, if something of the kind is not done, such bankruptcies will hit the economy of this country and also create further unemployment?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I think the Government are doing a great deal, through the Department of Trade, to encourage and help the development of small firms.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, could the Minister say why these figures are not available? Is it just that they have no comparable courts and that there are no comparable bankruptcy petitions? Or are the Government not willing to give figures of bankruptcies in other EEC countries?
Lord ORAM: No, my Lords, the answer is in accordance with the first suggestion which was made by the noble Baroness. It is quite impossible to relate one set of figures to another. In this country there are three categories of insolvencies; that is, individuals, unincorporated companies and incorporated companies. Whichever way you play this, you cannot get a comparable figure for other countries.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, without relating it to the EEC, can the noble Lord tell us what percentage of these bankruptcies apply to small businesses, as defined in the Bolton Report? Also, does not the noble Lord agree that they make a very worthwhile contribution to our industrial innovation, and therefore deserve an alleviation of some of the more tiresome forms of taxation and every possible encouragement?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, in answer to the noble Baroness, I indicated my attitude to the second part of the noble Lord's question. In relation to the first part, I am afraid that I should need notice on the question of figures for small as against larger concerns.

ADVERTISING AND ABSA
2.43 p.m.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Committee of the recently formed Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts (ABSA) will have powers to prevent the advertising of undesirable products; and whether a code of practice will be negotiated with the sponsors.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPARTMENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge): No, my Lords. The Association will not have preventive powers of this kind. Its purpose is to encourage commercial and industrial organisations to assist the arts. It will not normally be involved in the detailed arrangements which may be made between individual concerns and the promoters of artistic enterprises. It is for the promoters to determine, with their sponsors, whether any advertising which may be agreed upon is appropriate, always subject to the law of the land, and whether any of the voluntary codes on advertising are relevant. The Association will, of course, be in a position to give advice on these points.
Lord PLATT: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply which I find a little

973
disappointing, but I am sure that that is not his fault. May I ask him one or two supplementary questions? Does he agree that any negotiations to establish some kind of code of practice—which he says cannot be done by this Committee—should take place early rather than late? Does he also agree that the method of promotion is important? Finally, does he think that the advertising of cigarettes will conflict with the Government's antismoking campaign? May I say that I am all in favour of sponsorship of the arts, if these safeguards exist.
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, the morality, as it were, of advertising is normally controlled, as the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, knows very well, by the organisation of which I think he is chairman, where there is a voluntary code of procedure. The people brought together by ABSA, this new organisation—that is to say, some body who wishes to give money towards art and some artistic enterprise which wishes to receive money—will be subject to this in the ordinary way. I cannot pronounce on whether any particular instance will conflict with the Government's anti-smoking policy. There is a fairly carefully laid down code on the advertising of smoking—I think through the television companies—and I believe that there is even some talk of making this more rigid, but I am not quite clear how far this has gone. But, once again, any transaction entered into by ABSA would be subject, as would everybody else, to that.
Lord ROBBINS: My Lords, will the Minister agree that, on the whole, the business sponsorship of the arts up to date in this country has been more or less unexceptionable, and indeed admirable?
Lord DONALDSON of KINGSBRIDGE: My Lords, with the greatest of pleasure, I should agree.

RABIES: PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES
2.46 p.m.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in the even of an outbreak of rabies the organisation described in the guidelines issued to local authorities to control an outbreak is now set up throughout the country and whether the equipment listed in the same document is available.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I understand that the great majority of local authorities have now completed the preparation of their contingency plans or have them well advanced. Some equipment is already available and procurement is continuing. With a view to co-ordination and economy, some equipment is being pooled between neighbouring authorities.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, may I point out that these guidelines went out in June. Also, may I ask him whether he considers that local authorities have not had sufficient time to do this right throughout the country? May I also ask whether he does not consider that implementation of the dog warden scheme at the same time as this might be of great help throughout the country, for the collection of strays in the event of an outbreak.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the Ministry of Agriculture has a programme of purchasing necessary equipment to hold in readiness for a rabies outbreak. Only vital items will be purchased; that is, those which would not be immediately available for hire or purchase at the time of an outbreak. The Ministry maintains a record of sources of equipment to be acquired at the time of an outbreak, and this information is available to local authorities. With regard to stray dogs, of course this is one of the matters which would be implemented should there be a rabies outbreak.
Lord PEDDIE: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether he agrees that the penalties against the illegal importation of animals are sufficiently severe?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, the penalties are, of course, £400 on summary conviction and an unlimited fine or imprisonment up to a year on indictment.

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I think the question of whether they should be made more severe is one for consideration, and this will certainly be borne in mind.
Lord DE CLIFFORD: My Lords, while I fully appreciate the situation so far as equipment is concerned, I should like to press the Minister little further. How many councils have not completed their organisation? When I asked my supplementary question, I had hoped that I should get a greater amount of detail as to how many councils had done so, but in his supplementary reply the Minister ignored that. May I press him to say how many councils have completed their organisation and how many are still outstanding?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord an exact breakdown, but I would emphasise that contingency planning is a continuing process which will be kept under constant review. As recently as last week, officials of my Department and the Department of Health and Social Security met again with representatives of local authority and police associations to review progress and to discuss future action.
Lord SLATER: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether it would be too much to ask the Department to recircularise those authorities which have not yet sent in the returns about which the noble Lord is so concerned?
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, that I am sure is a suggestion which we shall consider, but I do not think that it is necessary because the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is keeping in close touch and working closely with all the local authorities. I should like to emphasise to the House that these are precautionary measures. The Government's policy is to keep rabies out of the country. There has not been a single case of rabies since 1970 and there will not be one, provided that we can control the import of dogs and cats.

LAND DRAINAGE BILL [H.L.]
2.50 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord Elwyn-Jones): My Lords, I beg to move
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that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill (211) as first printed for the Commons.]

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 1.]
Clause 29, page 29, line 26, leave out '(2)' and insert '(1)'
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 1. This Amendment, like almost all of those which I shall move in this connection, would correct a minor mistake in the Bill. This one in particular brings it into line with the enactments consolidated, by correcting a wrong cross-reference in Clause 29(6).
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 2 to 4.]
Clause 32, page 32, line 31, leave out 'the area of any water authority' and insert 'Great Britain'
Clause 32, page 32, line 35, leave out 'the area of any water authority and insert 'Great Britain'
Clause 32, page 32, line 39, leave out' the area of any water authority' and insert 'Great Britain'.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords with the leave of the House, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 2 to 4 en bloc. These Amendments all cover the same point and would correct a mistake in the Bill, and bring it into line with the enactments consolidated, by substituting "Great Britain" for "the area of any water authority" in three places in the definition of "inland water". I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 5.]
Clause 56, page 51, line 2, leave out 'board' and insert 'authority'.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 5. This would correct a mistake in the Bill and bring it into line with the enactments consolidated, by substituting "board" for "authority" in Clause 56(1)(c).
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 6.]
Clause 64, page 55, line 32, leave out 'and' and insert 'or'.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 6. This Amendment would correct a mistake in the Bill and bring it into line with the enactments consolidated, by substituting "or" for "and" in Clause 64(5) so as to make the second reference there to "character and annual value" read "character or annual value".
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 7.]
Clause 96, page 81, line 12, after 'is' insert 'liable'.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 7. Again this Amendment would correct a mistake in the Bill and bring it into line with the enactments consolidated, by inserting the missing word "liable".
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 8.]
Clause 112, page 88, line 18, leave out 'the Maplin Development Authority'.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House
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doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 8, and with the consent of the House I will also speak to Amendments Nos. 13 and 14. Amendment No. 8 would eliminate from the Bill references to the Maplin Development Authority and the Maplin Development Act 1973, for the very good reason that it is now clear, though it was not clear when the Bill was introduced, that the current Maplin Development Authority (Dissolution) Act, which provides for the dissolution of the Maplin Development Authority, will take effect before the Land Drainage Bill.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 9 to 11.]
Schedule 1, page 94, line 11, after 'by' insert 'or on behalf of'
Schedule 1, page 94, line 25, after 'by' insert or on behalf of'
Schedule 1, page 94, line 34, after 'by' insert or on behalf of'.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 9, 10 and 11, and with the consent of the House I will do so en bloc. These Amendments all cover a similar point on paragraphs 2 and 3 of Schedule 1 to the Bill. They would correct three mistakes in the Bill and bring it into line with the enactments consolidated, by inserting the missing words "or on behalf of" in three places.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENT
[No. 12.]
Schedule 6, page 113, line 28, at end insert—
'(2) This paragraph is hereby repealed as from immediately after the time when the repeal by this Act of the entry referred to in subparagraph (1)(a) above has effect.'
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 12. This Amendment would

979
add a self-repealing provision to paragraph 5 of Schedule 6 to the Bill. That paragraph, which is needed because the Bill would probably come into force shortly before the coming into force of the Local Land Charges Act 1975, one provision of which it consolidates, is needed at most for only a very brief period—probably only a few weeks. The inclusion of the self-repealing provision that would be provided by this Amendment would enable the Land Drainage Act, when it comes to be printed for the new edition of the Statute Book, Statutes in Force, to be printed without this paragraph, which will by then be dead wood.
Lord CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene but I am sure that it would be the wish of noble Lords on all sides of the House to congratulate the House of Commons on the revisory role that they have played in this legislation, which clearly left this House in a very slipshod fashion. There are many of us who think that if they confined themselves to that role things would perhaps go better.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I do not blame the noble Lord for his undoubted justifiably impatient but, alas!, premature intervention in the flood of my submissions to the House. I do not think that I put to the House the Question on Amendment No. 12.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment. (The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[Nos. 13 and 14.]
Schedule 7, page 116, line 5, leave out paragraph 9.
Schedule 8, page 117, leave out lines 20 and 21.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, finally I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 to which I have already spoken.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.— —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFITS BILL [H.L.]
2.59 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this is a similar exercise but, mercifully, a briefer one. I beg to move that the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill (243) as first printed for the Commons.]
[Nos. 1 and 2.]
Clause 33, page 20, line 36, leave out subsection (1).
Clause 33, page 20, line 39, leave out 'an order'.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 1 and 2. As introduced, the Bill was to be brought into effect by means of a commencement order, or orders, to which Clause 33(1) and (2) would apply. On recommitment to the Joint Committee, Clause 36(3) was amended to provide that the Bill should come into force on the specified day, the 15th November. With the amendments made by the Joint Committee to specify a date on which the Bill is to come into force, there are no provisions for the making of orders by the Secretary of State to that effect. The references to such orders in Clause 33(1) and (2) are therefore unnecessary.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DOCK WORK REGULATION BILL
3 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Reasons and the Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Reasons and the Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Jacques.)
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, I wish to intervene at this stage. We are considering the Message from the Commons on the Amendments decided in this House on this Bill. Your Lordships also have before you further Amendments which the Government will commend to you. Before our detailed consideration begins, I should like to make a brief intervention. The new Government Amendments would substitute throughout the Bill the concept of a definable dock area as decided by your Lordships for that of a cargo handling zone. They would ensure that a new Dock Labour Scheme would be applied to all work to which the 1967 Scheme is now applied, whether or not located in a definable dock area. They would provide that objections to a proposal to extend any particular definable dock area would be subject to public inquiry and that any subsequent order for such an extension would be laid in draft before Parliament and would need to be approved by a Resolution of each House. If these Amendments are acceptable to your Lordships and your Lordships do not insist on other Amendments, on behalf of the Government I assure the House that we would not seek to reintroduce the Bill as it was approved by the Commons on Third Reading, with a view to enacting it under the Parliament Act.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I think the House will be grateful to the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal for that statement, but before I say anything about it I think there are one or two prior considerations arising from the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques; namely, as to whether or not we should in the circumstances consider these Messages at all, and the context in which we are considering them. Perhaps I may just start by reminding your Lordships of what has occurred since we were last dealing with this Bill at Third Reading last Monday. Following our consideration here, which was far too hurried, we sent back to another place 58 Amendments. The other place tackled those Amendments last Wednesday; they agreed to 11 of them (for which we are grateful); the Government were defeated on two; they tied on three; they discussed a few others—about half a dozen—leaving 36 of our 58 Amendments not discussed at all because they were guillotined. So one consideration we have to apply is just how
982
those Reasons which are attributed to the Commons can be so attributed because they have not been discussed by the Commons at all.
The second consideration is whether in all the circumstances we are really ready for this consideration. The Commons Reasons for disagreeing to the Lords Amendments were published and became available on Friday afternoon, so that they were only in the hands of those of your Lordships who happened to be here, dealing with the quite different subject of Southern Rhodesia. On top of that the very Amendments to which the noble Lord the Lord privy Seal has referred in his important statement were not published and available until 10.15 this morning, so I doubt whether there are many of your Lordships who have even seen the paper, let alone had time to study it. It is quite certain that the interests which we are attempting to defend, and have been defending all along, will certainly barely be aware of its existence.
Those are the circumstances in which at the end of this most discreditable procedure we are being asked to reach our final conclusions. Turning to the statement of the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal I have to say that if the Government now accept, as a result of the opinion of the Commons, the concept of the limited half mile definable dock area, then the further Amendments which they are putting before us are, in my view, a satisfactory way of making the Bill operate satisfactorily. It is not really for me to speak on behalf of the whole House as to whether this is the right thing for us to be doing or whether the Lord Privy Seal's assurances are satisfactory, but they seem to me to be so. I think it is now a matter for other Members of your Lordships' House to express an opinion.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, we on these Benches would also like to thank the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal for making that statement. We are particularly grateful for the indication that the Government are proposing graciously to accept the fundamental alteration to this Bill from the five mile zone to the half mile limit, which was the Amendment most strenuously pressed in your Lordships' House. Indeed, if I may say so, the statement is itself a vindication of a

983
great deal of the work which has been done over the past few weeks on this Bill in your Lordships' House.
I should like to ask the Lord Privy Seal three questions that arise out of his statement. First, it appears that if we are to accept the proposals in the statement there will no longer be the statutory protection for the small ports which was originally inserted in the Bill by way of Amendment in your Lordships' House. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether the Government still stand by the statement, made by the Secretary of State before the Division in the other place at column 519 of Hansard on 10th November. He said:
"I recognise that there are a number of small ports, which, by their geographical location, irregular nature of cargoes and a number of other factors, will not be suited for the Dock Work Regulation Scheme".
If the noble Lord is able to indicate that that still remains the attitude of the Government, it will be of very great assistance to many of us on this side of the House.
Lord PEART: My Lords, I am advised that the answer is, Yes.
Lord WIGODER: I am much obliged, my Lords. Secondly, if we are to adopt the proposals in the statement and in the Commons Message and the Amendments to the Commons Message proposed in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, there is to be reinserted into the Bill the powers of the Secretary of State to exercise certain discretion to extend what will now be the half mile zone subject to public inquiry and subject to Affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament. I have no doubt that the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal accepts that any attempt by the Secretary of State to extend the zone beyond the half mile limit will be rigorously scrutinised by your Lordships' House should such proposal be made.
Thirdly, may I ask the noble Lord whether his final observations when he assured the House that he would not seek to reintroduce the Bill with a view to re-enacting it under the Parliament Act as it was approved by the Commons on Third Reading is an indication by the Government that they are not contempla-
984
ting in the near future attempting to substitute a five mile area for the half mile limit which has now apparently been agreed in both Houses? When this Bill first came to us it was a Bill that did no good and potentially a great deal of harm. If we accept these proposals, it is now a Bill that still does no good but may do comparatively little harm. During the Second Reading debate I described it as being a Bill that would be a blot on the Statute Book: if we now proceed along the lines indicated in the noble Lord's statement it will not be a blot, it will be equivalent to inserting a number of blank pages into the Statute Book and that is a course which we on these Benches will find infinitely preferable.
Lord PEART: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, has stated clearly his point of view and I am grateful that he has accepted my statement in such a spirit. I should like the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, to deal with two points as he has been dealing with them throughout the course of the debates on the Bill.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the reasons for the rejection by the Commons of various Amendments by this House were agreed by a Committee appointed by the other place, a Committee which, presumably, represented the views of the other place in devising the Reasons. I am glad the noble Lord thought that the Amendments now submitted were satisfactory. The first and most important part of the Amendments is to tidy up the Bill in accordance with the decision by the other place to confirm the half-mile limit. Therefore, the Amendments submitted are very largely tidying-up Amendments.
My Lords, we have always understood that no one wanted to declassify work already being done by registered dock workers. That is another purpose of the Amendments. One further purpose of the Amendments is simply to make it more difficult for the Secretary of State to amend the half-mile limit. In addition to the Affirmative Resolution procedure, the Secretary of State will now have to proceed with a public inquiry. We believe that at the end of the day the Amendments we are submitting will make the Bill a fair compromise, and will be a recognition by the Government as the

985
letter and spirit of what took place in the other place last Wednesday.
So far as questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, are concerned, I believe that when speaking of the small ports the Secretary of State made a serious statement which he intended to be taken as some kind of factor that would be given by the Government in considering the small ports. I believe the fact remains that the Government will have to have special regard to the difficulties of isolated ports. It is quite impossible to have the same arrangements in every port. Labour arrangements in small ports are necessarily different from those in large ports, and I think that the noble Lord meant that that would be taken into account by the Secretary of State.
As to the extension of the half-mile limit, I think I have said enough to show that we are suggesting Amendments to the Bill which will make it more difficult to extend the half-mile limit. However, we believe there could be occasions when we feel we should extend it and therefore it remains in the Bill. So far as concerns the last point on the Parliament Act, we are saying that if the House agrees to the Amendments which the Government have now submitted on the lines which I have indicated and there are no other changes, the Government will not use the Parliament Act for an immediate introduction of the Bill—that is to say, its introduction 12 months from the Second Reading in the House of Commons. On the question of whether the Government will try to amend the Bill in the course of next Session, I have no authority to say, "Yes" or, "No". It would be wrong for me to try to anticipate what will be in Her Majesty's speech, but I would be very surprised if it were included—but I have been surprised on more than one occasion.
Baroness BURTON of COVENTRY: My Lords, I am wondering whether it is in order for a Back-Bencher to intervene, as we are having a general discussion, because in this general atmosphere of amiability there is something I should like to say. I have greatly welcomed the statement of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal, and what I think is the generous attitude of Government in the way this has been phrased. I have abstained on this Bill from the beginning
986
because, as I made it plain to my noble friends, it was something I could not support. The only time I voted was when I had to accept the irrefutable logic of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, when he said he felt that as this House had spent so much time on the Bill and produced some 60 Amendments, not to send them back to another place for consideration would seem to be lacking in common sense, so I voted on that.
My Lords, I want to say that I felt I could not support the Bill, not because I necessarily did not agree with it, but because I thought it was wrong. I thought it sought to advantage one section of one union against other workers. I think it is obvious that many of my noble friends agreed that the Bill was not a desirable one, as is evident from the Division Lists. I think it is equally obvious that many members of my Party in another place also were not in favour of the Bill. Lastly, those members of the general public who were interested in the Bill thought it was unfair.
It seems to me that perhaps all this trouble started when another place sent us six major Bills to examine within six weeks. Apart from whether or not the Opposition were awkward, or quite apart from whether other Members like myself were awkward, had these six Bills been entirely uncontentious I do not think they could have been dealt with within a period of six weeks; it was impossible. I hope in this new spirit of amiability that the stream of abuse which has been directed to all Members of this House—it is not only to the Opposition but to all of us—will cease, because I, for one, in my humble way, have had enough.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROYAL ASSENT
3.18 p.m.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measure:

Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976.

Supplementary Benefit (Amendment) Act 1976.

987

Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976.

International Carriage of Perishable Foodstuffs Act 1976

National Health Service (Vocational Training) Act 1976.

Insolvency Act 1976.

Electricity (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1976.

Motor-Cycle Crash-Helmets (Religious Exemption) Act 1976.

Bail Act 1976.

Valuation and Rating (Exempted Classes) (Scotland) Act 1976.

Retirement of Teachers (Scotland) Act 1976.

Licensing (Scotland) Act 1976.

Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 1976.

New Towns (Amendment) Act 1976.

Companies Act 1976.

Land Drainage Act 1976.

Supplementary Benefits Act 1976.

Royal County of Berkshire (Public Entertainment) Provisional Order Confirmation Act 1976.

East Kilbride District Council Order Confirmation Act 1976.

Cromarty Harbour Order Confirmation Act 1976.

Tees Tunnel Act 1976.

County of South Glamorgan Act 1976.

Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 1976.

DOCK WORK REGULATION BILL
3.20 p.m.
Consideration of Commons Reasons and Amendments resumed.

COMMONS REASONS FOR DISAGREEING TO CERTAIN OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS AND COMMONS AMENDMENTS TO CERTAIN OF THE LORDS AMENDMENTS
[References are to Bill (312) as first printed for the Lords. Commons Reasons are printed in italics.]

LORDS AMENDMENTS
1 Clause 1, page 1, line 12, leave out "twelve" and insert "sixteen".
2 Clause 1, page 1, line 18, leave out "four" and insert "eight".
3 Clause 1, page 1, line 21, leave out "and".
4 Clause 1, page 1, line 22, at end insert "The National Consumer Council,".
5 Clause 1, page 1, line 22, at end insert "and the National Association of Warehouse-keepers".
6 Clause 1, page 1, line 22, at end insert "to represent consumers, port users and their employees and others not represented on the National Joint Council but with an interest in the efficient working of the ports."
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
Because they are inappropriate haring regard to the functions of the Board.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 1 to 6 en bloc, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 7. I would point out that the Bill is now in an entirely different state from the original Bill. The half-mile limit as distinguished from the five-mile limit makes a difference to the need for enlarging the size of the Board. Furthermore, I would point out that four-fifths of the cargo-handling is already going through Scheme ports, so that so far as the loading and unloading of ships is concerned we are concerned with only one-fifth of the imports and exports.
I would also point out that the Government have agreed to the Lords Amendment that when considering classification or declassification the National Dock Labour Board shall have due regard to the public interest. We believe that the Amendments would have resulted in the Board being too big and would have given people outside the industry a majority of places on the Board which, in relation to both sides of the industry, would have been unreasonable, since their primary task is to administer the Scheme.
In the circumstances in which we now find out ourselves, I would suggest that there is even less good reason for these Amendments than there was before and I hope the House will not insist upon them.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 7.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am sorry that the Government have found themselves unable to agree to some form of consultation with consumer interests on

989
the Board. There were two Amendments which were designed to attain that purpose, one that I moved and the House agreed to on Division, and also Amendment No. 4 which, if I recall correctly, was a Liberal Amendment to include consultation with the National Consumer Council. One of the Bill's many defects is that the consumer interest is really nowhere represented, and, as many noble Lords said at the time, the difficulty is that even in the now narrowly defined dock labour areas the warehouses and other facilities which may in due course become operated by dockers will give these new dock labour forces what some would call a stranglehold on the food supplies of the nation. As a House we are resolved not to insist upon these Amendments, but I could not let the matter pass without saying clearly that the failure to make provision for consultation with consumer interests is a fundamental defect of this Bill.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I would agree with what the noble Lord has said, that now the area of suzerainty of the Board is going to be less wide there is less reason for increasing the numbers as proposed in the Amendment which we sent to the Commons. That is not to say that there is no reason at all. I hope that in some way or other the Government will provide for your Lordships and the other place to know how the Board is voting on these matters regarding premises and the like on which they are recommending. This is important in order that the Board may be seen to be impartial, and we are not all the time getting a majority of the interest directly concerned, that is of the National Joint Council, over-riding the rest. Can the noble Lord give an indication as to how some kind of publicity will be given to the Board's decisions and how both Houses will be able to find out how they are working?
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I do not want to make a speech but only to ask a question. I do not know who will answer it. Are we going to debate these matters all over again? Already there is an attempt to do it. The noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Drumalbyn, have indicated their disagreement. If we are going on to debate this case again we can all take part. I suggest that we decide what we are going to do. Either we are going to vote against the Motion or leave the matter alone.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: My Lords, I suggest that the House will proceed with its usual good sense. One understands that Peers from all sides of the House will want to ask questions, but in view of the Statement made by my noble friend the Leader of the House which was unequivocal, and in the spirit in which it was received particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, I should very much hope that we shall keep these proceedings in the normal good temper and as brief as possible.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, in reply to the discussion may I say that during the previous stage of this Bill I was at pains to show how, in the Government's opinion, the consumers' interest was negligible. Four-fifths of the cargo-handling is already done by regulated dock workers. For that reason we did not think that there should be that consultation. On the other hand, it is provided in the Bill that there shall be consultation with the TUC and the CBI. What the Government have in mind, which I think will be agreed on all sides is fair and reasonable, is that that work which could be classifiable should have the opportunity of representation by both sides on the National Dock Labour Board—I refer not to work that is classified, but to work that is classifiable—so that before the event they can have a say as to whether or not it should be classified. That was the main reason for the additional numbers on the Board. I have noted what the noble Lord has said about publicity. I think it is a point which we should bear in mind and see what can be done.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
3.28 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT
8 Clause 4, page 3, line 38, leave out "in draft" and insert "and publish in accordance with the provisions of Schedule (Public Inquiries (Notices and Procedures)) to this Act,".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
9 Because provision for a public inquiry procedure is unnecessary, the Deputy Speaker having cast his vote to retain the Bill in the form in which it left the Commons.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 8, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 9,

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and if I am in order I would move similarly in relation to Amendment No. 10 for the Reason numbered 12; Amendment No. 11 for the Reason numbered 12, and speak to those together.
My Lords, I believe that the House should not insist on these Amendments. In previous debates there has been some confusion about what the public inquiry procedure would achieve. The old Dock Labour Scheme specified to which work and to which premises the obligations and requirements of the Scheme would apply. The new Scheme is concerned only with specifying the obligations and requirements. Under this Bill the question of where the Scheme can be applied is to be determined, first, by the decision of what is a definite dock area and, second, by the procedures under Clauses 6, 7, 8 and 9 for determining in those areas whether or not classifiable work should be classified as dock work.
Under the 1946 Act employers and unions could put forward their own local scheme to apply to a port, and when introduced in 1946 it was thought that the Government would normally not interfere in such matters. In practice it has always been the Government which put forward the proposals for a scheme. We hope therefore that the House will recognise that there are important distinctions between what was envisaged under the 1946 Act and what is envisaged under the Bill. We are not opposed to public inquiries—indeed, there is a Government Amendment which indicates that—but we believe that the public inquiry is unnecessary in these particular circumstances.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 9.—(Lord Oram.)
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, the last thing I would wish to do is to irritate the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, by rehearsing once more our debates of earlier stages about public inquiries. I would only say that when the noble Lord, Lord Oram, told us that the Commons disagreed with our Amendment he might also have pointed out that they so disagreed by the casting vote of the Speaker. I enjoyed listening to the noble Lord telling us that the Government do
992
not, in principle, object to public inquiries. That is a somewhat different line from that taken by the Front Bench opposite at earlier stages of the Bill, but, as he pointed out, they have now accepted the principle in regard to the important question of the powers of extension of the Secretary of State, and with that we on these Benches, at any rate, are, for the moment, content.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
10 Clause 4, page 3, line 41, leave out paragraph (b).
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
12 Because provision for a public inquiry procedure is unnecessary.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I have already spoken to this Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 10.
Moved, that this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the reason numbered 12.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
11 Clause 4, page 4, line 4, leave out paragraph (c).
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
12 Because provision for a public inquiry procedure is unnecessary.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 11.
Moved, that this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 12.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
13 Page 4, line 12, at end insert—
"(2C) A definable dock area shall not include any small harbour or any place within half a mile (in a direct line) of a small harbour, being a place which is not also within a similar distance of a harbour to which this Act applies.
(2D) In subsection (2C) above "small harbour" means a harbour or wharf—

(a) at which the hours worked in the twelve months ended 3rd December 1975 by a person in loading cargo into, or unloading cargo from, ships did not exceed (on being averaged

993
with the hours so worked by other persons so engaged during that period) 1,350; or

(b) which cannot at mean high water, accommodate ships of a gross registered tonnage more than 1,000 tons; or

(c) where the labour force is employed substantially on a permanent basis and where the terms and conditions of service are not less favourable than the national terms laid down for ports affiliated to the National Joint Council; and for the purposes of this subsection "cargo" and "ship" mean the same as in Schedule 3 to this Act."

The Commons disagreed to this amendment for the following Reason:
14 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification, Mr. Speaker having cast his vote to retain the Bill in the form in which it left the Commons.
3.35 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 13 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 14. This Amendment seeks to exclude what we have come to refer to as the "small ports". There is very little which divides your Lordships' House and the other place and the Government and the Opposition on this matter. The Secretary of State said in the Commons debate on the Lords Amendments:
"I recognise that there are a number of small ports which by their geographical location, irregular nature of cargoes and a number of other factors, will not be suited for the Dock Work Regulation scheme. I would not lay before the House a Bill which would have the effect of requiring every small port to be included in the Scheme if those factors did not apply."
Therefore, my Lords, there is no disagreement about the objectives of ensuring that small ports are not subject to the Scheme where its application would be both irrelevant and absurd. The Government are objecting to the means proposed in these Amendments to achieve that objective. They believe that the Bill contains in Clauses 7 and 8 adequate and satisfactory procedures to deal with small harbours. Those clauses deal with the small harbour question far more effectively than the criteria contained in Lords Amendment No. 13, since they already provide for the Board to take account of all relevant considerations, and in particular whether the work requires for its efficient performance the engage-
994
ment of a permanent labour force. The Government have repeatedly stated their view that absolute exclusion of particular places, either by name or by reference to some standard criteria of the kind proposed in the Amendment, is not a sensible way to proceed precisely because there is such a wide variety of factors that could be relevant. The exclusions proposed would work in a completely arbitrary and unsatisfactory way.
In view of the repeated assurances given about the Government's intention towards small ports, and since the House would be able to study the effect of those assurances as classification of work as dock work could take place only after statutory orders had been laid before both Houses, we would hope that your Lordships would not wish to insist upon these Amendments.
Moved, that this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 14.—(Lord Oram.)
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I wonder whether the Government could clarify a little what the situation will now be. As I understand it, under the Bill as it came to us in the first place, although various assurances were given in another place at Second Reading and later, there was going to be the possibility of those administering small ports having to provide particulars in some detail to either the National Dock Labour Board or the local dock labour board so that such boards could determine whether or not they should leave such ports alone—if that is the right phrase. One of the things which concerned the people in small ports was that, even if they were going to be left alone—because they were so small and because they fell into the general pattern which the noble Lord has reassured us yet again the Government are not seeking to cover in this Bill—they were going to be troubled (if that is the phrase) by having to produce a lot of facts and figures which, normally speaking, they would not produce. They would be required to go to the trouble and expense of collecting these figures for the benefit of the Board, so that it could make its decision.
I am not quite clear whether, under the Bill as amended after the Government

995
have moved and carried the Amendments now before us, the small ports will be spared unnecessary collation of facts and figures, or not. I suspect it might be a little difficult for the noble Lord, Lord Oram, to provide me with an answer immediately, but I should be most grateful if he could provide such an answer. If the local dock labour board or the National Dock Labour Board are going to make such impositions on small port operators, could he see his way to preventing that in obviously ridiculous cases? It may be that this could be achieved administratively rather than by prolonging Amendments to this Bill. Would it be possible for him to give me some reassurance?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the noble Lord is right; that procedure does still remain for requiring information in the way he suggests, but I think it will be administered in a common sense way. There is no need to trammell ports unnecessarily, but we believe there is a need to examine circumstances in all small ports. I understand the noble Lord's anxiety and I will, if I may, write to him at greater length.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, before we dispose of this, I wonder whether I might ask for guidance as to how we are proceeding. I find it extremely mystifying. We have two Papers before us on Lords Amendments to the Dock Work Regulation Bill, and at the moment I am not sure whether we are working on the second Paper in regard to the Amendments and on the first Paper in regard to the Commons reasons for disagreeing with the Amendments. I was not quite clear what happened on the last Amendment, because I was not clear which No. 11 we were talking about. If we were talking about No. 11 on the original paper, then I think I was right in hearing that this House did not insist on that Amendment, but if we are talking about No. 11 on the second paper, it would be a case of this House agreeing with the Commons in their Amendment. I wonder whether I could have some clarification on this. Otherwise we are going to get in rather a mess.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I hope we can avoid that. So far we have been dealing with this document marked at the bottom No. 382, but later either I or my noble friend Lord Jacques will be moving Amendments; so far we have not had to do that; we have been considering the Commons Reasons. Later, the other paper will come into play.
Lord DRUMALBYN: With great respect, the reason for asking was that we proceeded, as I understood it, straight from an Amendment on page 4, line 4, to an Amendment on page 4, line 12, whereas one of the new Amendments was "page 4, leave out lines 11 and 12 and insert the new words proposed by the Commons". We seem to have left that out for the moment. I was wondering what we could do about it.
Lord ORAM: My reference is to page 4, line 13, which would put the matter in order. It may be that the document to which the noble Lord referred is an older version; I am not sure.
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: It is possible that the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is speaking to the document printed on 8th November, whereas we are dealing with the document printed on 11th November.
Lord DRUMALBYN: May I clarify this point. Do I understand that when we come to the new Commons Amendments they will be dealt with as and when they arise, at the end of our procceedings?
Baroness LLEWELYN-DAVIES of HASTOE: Yes.
Lord LEATHERLAND: If I may add to Lord Drumalbyn's bewilderment, he referred to the two printed sets of Amendments. We find in the Printed Paper Office that there are two typewritten sets of Amendments.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
Lord SANDFORD: It is all part of the confusion.
The LORD CHANCELLOR: I trust we are all ad idem about what we are talking about.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
15 Clause 4, page 4, line 12, at end insert—
"(2E) The Secretary of State may by order amend (or having made one or more previous orders under this subsection, further amend), by substituting some other number, the number of hours laid down in subsection (2D)(a) or the number of tons laid down in subsection (2D)(b) above.
(2F) An order shall not be made under subsection (2E) above unless a draft of it has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House."
16 The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 15 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 16. These are linked with the previous Amendment.
Moved, that this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which The Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 16.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
Page 4, line 13, leave out subsections (3) to (7).
17 The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
18 Becase they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification, Mr. Speaker having cast his vote to retain the Bill in the form in which it left the Commons.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 17 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 18.
Lord FLETCHER: May I formally inquire whether there is a misprint in relation to this Amendment at the top of page 2 of the manuscript document where, with regard to the order it says that it should be approved by a resolution of the House? It seems to me that perhaps there is a misprint there and it should read "both Houses".
Lord ORAM: Yes, my Lords, instead of "the", the word, "each" should be inserted. I shall have something further to say in relation to a substitute Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment numbered 17 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 18.—(Lord Oram.)
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I am afraid that that will not do. I said that we were in considerable confusion and now here we are. The fact of the matter is that we have to have at least four bits of paper in front of us. One is the Commons list of our Amendments labelled at the bottom "Bill 248". Without that, you cannot tell exactly what the Commons have done with their agreed Amendments. Then you have to have the list with the figure 382 at the bottom left-hand corner which, up to this moment, we have been running through in sequence. Now, for the first time, we come to the additional Motion and Amendments proposed by the Government, tabled only this morning for us to consider, the first one of which requires a manuscript Amendment before we can deal with it. If the noble Lord would move his manuscript Amendment, then I think we would be in order.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I think the necessary step first is that the Motion that I have just moved should be accepted by your Lordships before we get on to a consideration of the Amendment and the manuscript Amendment to which the noble Lord has referred.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move a manuscript Amendment to the Amendment:
Subsection (5), leave out the second "the", and insert "each".
On Question, Amendment to the Amendment agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT IN LIEU OF LORDS AMENDMENT No. 17
Page 4, line 13 leave out subsections (3) to (7) and insert—
"(3) Any premises as to which the Board has reported under section 6 of this Act that work done there is dock work for the purposes of the 1967 Scheme as it applies in any port, or is so treated by custom and practice, are to be treated as part of the definable dock area which includes that port, if not otherwise falling to be so treated under subsection (2A) above.
(4) The Secretary of State may, if it appears to him necessary in the light of local circumstances affecting any particular definable dock

999
area, by order extend that area (or, having made in relation to it any one or more previuos orders under this subsection, further extend it) by directing the addition to it of any contiguous area.
(5) An order shall not be made under subsection (4) in relation to a definable dock area unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of the House.
(6) Schedule (Procedure before making of extension order under s. 4(4)) to this Act has effect as to the steps which are to be taken by the Secretary of State before making an order under subsection (4) of this section; and where an order under the subsection is laid before Parliament in draft for the purposes of subsection (5) there shall be laid with it—

(a) a statement by the Secretary of State certifying that Schedule (Procedure before making of extension order under s. 4(4)) has been complied with, and

(b) where a public inquiry has been held, a copy of any report and recommendation made by the person who held the inquiry."

Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth propose the first Amendment in lieu to page 4, line 13, to Amendment No. 17, to which the Commons have disagreed. The provisions of the original subsections (3) to (7) defining the cargo handling shown and providing a procedure for its extension would create a nonsense if, following the Commons agreement to the Amendment confining the operation of the new scheme to definable dock areas within half a mile of harbours or harbour land, they were retained. The purpose of the alternative Amendment proposed is to make a workable and sensible Bill which, if enacted, would still be of benefit to the Docks Industry and the country.
The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that the spirit of the decisions taken both here and in another place are put into a form which would enable their sensible operation in the future. The Government believe that this must mean allowing the possibility of extension of the definable dock area, just as Clause 4(6) and (7) would have allowed for such a possibility. The procedure for such extension proposed is similar to that previously proposed for the cargo handling zone; that is, consideration by the Board, allowing 60 days for representations and an order, subject to Affirmative Resolution, but as an addititional and substantive safeguard in view of the debate, provision for a public inquiry where objections are
1000
raised to the proposal. This is in line with the Amendment originally proposed by noble Lords opposite at Committee stage to the procedure for extending the cargo-handling zone.
It will not be possible for any part of the country which is not contiguous with an existing definable dock area to be added to the definable dock area by this procedure. Any addition can therefore be only of an exclusion of an existing definable dock area. Since definable dock areas will cover only a very small proportion of the area which the cargo-handling zone would have covered, this places very strict limits to the additional areas which could be added.
The Government hope that this proposal will be acceptable to the House. It seems undesirably inflexible to exclude altogether the possibility of extending definable dock areas other than by new legislation. Premises in a dock estate may be so treated, because the half-mile limitation is outside a definable dock area when it would be sensible to include them. If an employer moves 100 yards from within to without a definable dock area, we think that good industrial relations can best be maintained by allowing for the possibility of an extension of the Scheme. Similarly, half a mile from a harbour or harbour land may, because of geographical configurations of harbours, lead to some obvious nonsenses of the land which is, or is not, to be potentially within the scope of the Scheme if dock work is performed. But this procedure calling for examination by the Board, a public inquiry if objections are made, and then an Affirmative Resolution, should mean that the power will be used only either to correct what was accepted by all to be an anomaly, or where developments had been such that the need for such an extension was very widely felt to be desirable.
The provision in new subsection (3) is desirable because there is a small amount of work, particularly at some container bases in London and Liverpool, which is at present treated by custom and practice as dock work and done by registered workers clearly outside a definable dock area. The Government believe it would be most undesirable and create an enormous amount of industrial ill-feeling if it were not possible

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to bring such work under the new Scheme. In addition, it is possible that work done within what are considered as dock work areas, and which is certainly dock work under the 1967 Scheme, may be done more than half a mile from harbours and harbour land. For these reasons, I beg to move the Amendment.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the first Amendment proposed in lieu of Amendment No. 17 to which the Commons have disagreed.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, I suppose that the most difficult examination which it is possible to sit in in this country is the examination for the Fellowship of All Souls, and I would suggest to the examiners of that college that next year in their political papers they set this question: Discuss the last 10 days in the life of the Dock Work Regulation Bill. The gist, if I may try to summarise it, of what the noble Lord, Lord Oram, has just said is that the Government have accepted the consequences of the House of Commons' Vote last Wednesday and are taking out all mention of the zone. With this of course we are delighted. As the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, said when discussing the Statement of the noble Lord the Leader of the House earlier this afternoon, it makes these long hours, days, weeks and nights in this House on this Bill well worth while.
I want to refer to the position first under the 1967 Scheme; that is, the Scheme which is currently in force and which this Bill seeks to renew or to extend. It was never our intention, those of us who believed that the half-mile Amendment improved the Bill, to declassify existing dock work, and so we fully accept this Amendment—that is, subsection (3) of the Government's new Amendment—as clarifying the agreed position. We have not ceased to make clear on these Benches that we are not against ameliorating the difficulties faced due to technological change and other factors by dock workers. We simply want to limit the extension of dock workers' powers as they may affect the rights and interests of other groups of workers.
I come to the powers of extension by the Secretary of State which are implicit
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in the Amendment moved by the noble Lord. Due to a casting vote of the Speaker in another place the Secretary of State's power to extend the zone from half a mile did remain in the Bill in another place, though I think it is fair for me to say that had that vote been taken in your Lordships' House it would have been written out as consequential on the earlier victory. So we on this side were most concerned that these powers could have been used effectively to reverse the House of Commons position and effectively to retain the five-mile zone. If we had been convinced that this might have been the case, I think we would have wished to leave the Bill even in a highly absurd muddled form on the Statute Book so that it would surely be unworkable. But we felt that this position could be tidied up safely because of the hand brakes, if I may so term them, which we have applied to the Secretary of State's machine.
The first of these is the question of timing. It will take the Government some years, perhaps one year or two years, to set up the Scheme, to get it into full operative force, and we have had an effective admission from the Government this afternoon that no early use of it would be likely to be made. But this by itself would not be good enough, and so we have the concession from the Government of a public inquiry, at variance rather with their remarks about there being no need for public inquiries on other items in connection with the Bill at an earlier stage. We also had the important concession that the Secretary of State would only make extensions order by order and district by district.
One of the purposes surely of a Parliamentary proceeding of the Affirmative Resolution procedure which applies here is that while the Affirmative Resolution proceeds through both Houses there is time for outside opinion to mobilise, and for those who might feel adversely affected by the Secretary of State's powers here to make their views and wishes known. We feel that these two additional items give a real braking effect to what the Secretary of State can do as well as, as I said earlier, giving in to the wishes of the House of Commons on the matter.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT IN LIEU OF LORDS AMENDMENT No. 17
Page 24, after Schedule 1 insert—
the following new Schedule:—

SCHEDULE

  PROCEDURE BEFORE MAKING EXTENSION ORDER UNDER S. 4(4)
  1. Where the Secretary of State proposes to make an order extending or further extending a definable dock area, he shall refer the proposal to the Board and invite them to report to him with their opinion and advice on it.
  2. He shall also publish the fact that he has referred the proposal, and the manner in which the area in question is proposed to be extended—

  (a) in at least one national newspaper and at least one newspaper circulating in and around the area proposed to be extended, and

  (b) without prejudice to section 15(2) pf this Act, in such other ways as he thinks most appropriate for bringing the proposal to the notice of the persons likely to be affected by an impleemntation of it.

  3. The Secretary of State shall allow at least 60 days for representations to be made to him (by the Board and others) with regard to the proposal, and shall consider any representations that are made.
  4. (1) For the purpose of determining whether to proceed with the proposal, the Secretary of State may cause a public inquiry to be held: and he shall cause such an inquiry to be held if it appears to him, from representations made by the Board and others, that there are objections to the proposal (other than objections appearing to him to be merely frivolous).
  (2) Any such inquiry shall be held by a person appointed by the Secretary of State from among persons appearing to him to be impartial as respects the subject matter of the inquiry; and the person so appointed shall report his findings to the Secretary of State, together with such recommendations (if any) as he thinks it right to make.
  (3) In relation to any inquiry held for the purposes of this paragraph, Section 250(2) and (3) of the Local Government Act 1972 (power to require witnesses' attendance, etc.) apply as they do in relation to a local inquiry held under Section 250(1) of that Act.")
  Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House do propose the second Amendment to insert a new Schedule in lieu of the Lords Amendment No. 17, to which the Commons have disagreed. I beg to move.
  Moved, That this House doth agree with the second Amendment in lieu of Lords Amendment No. 17.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
19 Clause 4, page 5, line 8, at end insert—
"A.—(1) Subject to final determination by the local dock labour boards, transfer of men from the extension register to the main register shall be restricted to those—

(a) who have been employed for a minimum of two years in work which becomes classified as dock work;

(b) who have satisfied the Medical Officer of the National Dock Labour Board that they are fit to perform the work concerned;

(c) who have attained the necessary levels of skill to perform the work in question; and

(d) who have not, while previously employed in the port transport industry, accepted severance pay under any redundancy scheme.

(2) Where a person is employed on premises classified under the Act and is unable to meet the requirements of subsection (1) above, that person shall be allowed to continue in that employment on the extension register."
20 Clause 4, page 5, line 9, after section "insert" and section (Transfer from Extension to Main Register) above,"
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
21 Because they impose undesirable restrictions respecting the transfer of an existing work force from one register to the the other.
4 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 19 and 20, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 21.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 21.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I rise briefly to regret that the other place took this view. Our Amendment had been modified considerably in the light of the Government's first reactions, but we still felt it was necessary to have this new clause in order to limit the extent to which the existence of a large force of men, unskilled and largely medically unfit to do the work for which they were registered, remained a burden to port employees. We still take that view and regret that this Amendment should not have been accepted and that this cost will now fall on the ports and the employers in them.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
22 Clause 5, page 5, line 30, leave out "the cargo-handling zone" and insert "a definable dock area"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
23 Because they would exclude areas within which owrk should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 22, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 23. Before the Question is put, there are two things that I should say. First, I wish to put forward in place of the Amendment which has been rejected by the Commons the Amendment on the supplementary Marshalled List, in:
Page 5, line 28, leave out subsection (4) and insert:
"(4) The work that may be classified is any which—

(a) is done or to be done at premises in a definable dock area and is within Part I of Schedule 3 to this Act and not within Part II of that Schedule; or

(b) whether or not falling within paragraph (a) above, is reported by the Board to the Secretary of State under section 6 below as having been dock work for the purposes of the 1967 Scheme or been to treated by custom and practice".)

Secondly, I should mention that in the second last line of the typescript the word "to" should be deleted and the word "so" put in its place.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 23, but agree to the Amendment in lieu thereof as set out on the Manuscript List subject to the Amendment to delete "to" and insert "so" in the penultimate line.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
24 Clause 5, page 5, line 41, at end insert—
"(5A) The Scheme shall not impose any obligations on dock employers who do not for the time being employ workers on classified work."
The Commons agreed to this Amendment but proposed the following Amendment thereto:
25 Clause 5, page 5, Line 3, leave out ("for the time being").
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendment No. 25 to the Lords Amendment No. 24.
Moved, That the House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment to the Lords Amendment.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, may we have an explanation from the Minister as to why the words "for the time being" are being left out? There is no explanation in the document that we are considering.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, this was a Government Amendment and the Amendment made to it in the Commons is a drafting Amendment. In our view, it further clarifies the intention of the Amendment which was made in response to points raised on Report.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
26 Clause 5, page 6, line 37, leave out from "shall" to end of line 42 and insert "comply with the provisions of Schedule (Public Inquiries (Notices and Procedures)) to this Act."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
27 Because provision for a public inquiry procedure is unnecessary.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 26, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 27.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 27.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, the only point I have to make is that this is entirely inconsistent with the view the Government have been taking up to a few minutes ago.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 28, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 32 but propose the Amendment in the supplementary Marshalled List in lieu thereof:

LORDS AMENDMENT
28 Clause 5, page 8, line 7, leave out "the cargo-handling zone" and insert "a definable dock area".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
32 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Page 8, line 16, leave out from ("done") to ("by") in line 17 and insert ("at premises situated in a definable dock area").
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 32 but agree to the Amendment in lieu thereof—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
29 Clause 7, page 8, line 16, leave out "the cargo-handling zone" and insert "a definable dock area".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
32 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 29, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 32 but propose the Amendment in the supplementary Marshalled List in lieu thereof, in page 8, line 16.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 32 but agree to the Amendment in lieu thereof, in page 8, line 16.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
30 Clause 7, page 9, line 32, after "if" insert "(a)"
31 Clause 7, page 9, line 33, after "Act" insert" or
(b) the work is done at premises outside a definable dock area."
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
32 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 30 and 31 en bloc, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 32.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which the
1008
Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 32.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
33 Clause 7, page 9, line 39, after "efficient" insert "and cost effective".
34 Clause 7, page 9, line 40, at end insert "and
(iii) if classified as dock work can continue to be performed economically without any risk of the undertaking where the work is performed being rendered uneconomic with the consequent loss of employment.".
35 Clause 7, page 9, line 43, at end insert—
"(7A) The Board shall not so recommend if in their opinion the classification of the work would adversely affect the financial viability of the operations constituting the work.".
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
36 Because it is undesirable to restrict the Board in the manner proposed in relation to its recommendations concerning classification.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 33 to 35 en bloc, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 36.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 36.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
37 Page 10, line 31, after "Act" insert "and in particular to subsection (1A) below".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
38 Because they introduce criteria for classification which would be difficult to interpret and could give rise to anomalies.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 37 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason No. 38.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 38—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
39 Page 10, line 32, leave out "the cargo-handling zone" and insert "a definable dock area"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
40 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 39, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 40, but propose the Amendment on the supplementary Marshalled List in lieu thereof:
Page 10, line 32, leave out from ("premises") to ("within") in line 33 and insert ("situated in a definable dock area and falling".)
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed but propose the Amendment in lieu thereof.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
41 Clause 7, page 10, line 37, at end insert—
"(1A) Where more than one half of all the hours worked by persons engaged in the handling of cargo on the premises in any continuous period of twelve months within the preceding five years have been spent on work which is not classifiable as dockwork the Board shall not recommend classification of any work done on these premises."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
42 Because they introduce criteria for classification which would be difficult to interpret and could give rise to anomalies.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 41, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 42.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 42.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
43 Page 11, line 18, leave out "(a)"
44 Page 11, line 20, leave out "or (b)" and insert "and (a)"
45 Page 11, line 26, leave out "more" and insert "both".
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
46 Because it is undesirable to restrict the Board in the manner proposed in relations to its recommendations concerning classification.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist
1010
on their Amendments Nos. 43 to 45 en bloc, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason No. 46, but propose the Amendment to page 12, line 28, in lieu thereof and as set out on the Manuscript List:
Page 12, line 28, leave out from ("premises") to ("with") and insert ("situated in a definable dock area".)
Moved that this House doth not insist on the said Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 46 but propose an Amendment in lieu thereof.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
47 Clause 9, page 12, line 28, leave out "the cargo-handling zone" and insert "a dock labour scheme area,"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
48 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 47, which to the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 48 but propose the Amendment to page 12 line 28, in lieu thereof:
Page 12, line 28, leave out from ("premises") to ("with") and insert ("situated in a definable dock area".)
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 48, but propose an Amendment in lieu thereof.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
Appeals concerning classification
49 After Clause 9, page 13, line 22, at end insert:
"B.—(1) If any person being an employer of persons carrying out work to which sections 7, 8 or 9 apply, or any trade union recognised for the purposes of collective bargaining by any such employer shall dispute whether any work should be classified as dockwork which falls within Part I of Schedule 3 and not within Part II of the Schedule or claims that any work should not be classified or should cease to be classified on the grounds that it falls within Part II of Schedule 3 and not within Part I of that Schedule, he may give notice to the Secretary of State.
(2) Any such notice under this section shall state—

(a) the name and address of the person giving the same and the facts entitling him to give such notice;

1011

(b) the nature of the dispute identifying the work in question and the facts relating thereto in sufficient details to enable a reference to be made hereunder including the address or description of the premises at which such work is carried on;

and a copy of such notice shall be sent by the person giving the same to the Board and to all other persons being employers and trade unions as aforesaid and in any way concerned or interested in the subject matter of the dispute.
(3) If the dispute or claim is not resolved, withdrawn or otherwise settled the Secretary of State may refer the dispute for decision to the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service or to an Industrial Tribunal.
(4) No report or recommendation by the Board and no order made by the Secretary of State relating to such a dispute or claim shall be made while the dispute or claim stand referred to the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service or to an Industrial Tribunal."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
50 Because the Bill already provides adequate procedures for determining whether or not work should be classified as dock work.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 49 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 50.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 50.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, can help me. The original Consultation Document about dock work envisaged that both the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service at one point and the Industrial Tribunal at another could be involved, and should be invoked in order to deal with disputes about what should be and what should not be arising from proposals or decisions to classify particular pieces of work as dock work. The Commons disagreed to the Amendment which we eventially put into the Bill after a good deal of discussion, and they say that there are now adequate procedures for determining disputes as to whether or not work should be classified. I think it would be interesting to know from the noble Lord just exactly where we can find those in the Bill.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I think that the procedures are set out in Clauses 7 and 8 and in one of the Schedules to the Bill, which sets out the procedure for dealing with the classification of work. For example, where the work is other than loading and unloading, there is a two-stage procedure. First, the Board has to give notice that it considers there to be a prima facie case for classification. It sends a copy of that notice and receives representations. It has to consider the whole question again, and, if it decides that there is a prima facie case, it has to start all over again and give notice again. After receiving representations the second time, it has to decide whether or not it is reasonable to recommend classification. It then recommends to the Secretary of State, and, again, there is an opportunity for representation. So, in that case, there are three opportunities for representations, two to the Board and one to the Secretary of State. That is the kind of procedure to which we are referring when we say that the procedures in the Bill are adequate.
Lord DRUMALBYN: The noble Lord may feel that there are adequate procedures in the Bill but he has only given an example from one clause. There may possibly be other clauses within which representations may be made and I do not necessarily agree with everything that he has said about Clause 8. I believe that it would be helpful to the House if the noble Lord could spell out what the Government are proposing instead of the Amendment which was made at the Committee stage in this House.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the Government rely upon the procedures in the Bill. There is another procedure in Schedule 4, paragraph 13, which was the Schedule to which I was referring a moment ago. There, it says that the Secretary of State, if he thinks it appropriate in consequence of representations made to him, through him or otherwise, may refer questions to ACAS for its opinion and advice.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am sorry but the noble Lord is now dealing with only one clause. It would be necessary for him to show on the other clauses—Nos. 6 and 7—that there were parallel procedures. However, there are not; there is only the right to make representations.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, so far as ACAS is concerned, the Secretary of State has the power to refer any industrial relations matter to ACAS now.
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, for the life of me, I cannot see why this should not go into the Bill in a way that covers all these procedures. The main procedures are directed towards deciding whether work should be classified or not; they are not directed towards disputes that arise as a result of those decisions. However, at this stage, I think that we despair of pursuing the matter any further.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
4.12 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT
51 Clause 11, page 14, line 3, leave out "the cargo-handling zone "and insert" a dock labour scheme area,"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
52 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 51 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 52 but propose in lieu thereof the Amendment to page 14, line 3, set out on the Manuscript List.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed, but agree to the following Amendment in lieu thereof:
Page 14, line 3, leave from "premises" to end of line and insert "situated in a definable dock area".—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
53 Clause 11, page 14, line 22, at end insert ", after the provisions of Schedule (Public Inquiries (Notices and Procedures)) to this Act have been complied with,"
54 Clause 11, page 14, line 29, after "State" insert "after the provisions of Schedule (Public Inquiries (Notices and Procedures)) to this Act have been complied with"
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
55 Because provision for a public inquiry procedure is unnecessary.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 53 and 54 to which the Commons
1014
have disagreed for the Reasons numbered 55.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 55.—(Lord Oram.)
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, my noble friend mentioned this earlier, but having put a public inquiry procedure into the Bill, it seems illogical for us to agree to Commons Reason No. 55. Though I would not suggest for a moment that we would want these Amendments carried through or that one should object to the Commons disagreeing them, I think that for the sake of logic and the record it should somehow be indicated that there is a new reason and not that given in Reason No. 55. This seems unhappy, and I wonder whether the Government can help us here.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, perhaps the Reason or suggested Amendment could read, "for the reason that a public inquiry is provided for elsewhere".
Lord ORAM: My Lords, what is stated here is the Commons Reason, not the reasons that we are now putting forward in relation to Amendments which we are moving. The point is that there are two kinds of public inquiry in question. One is a much more general one which was inserted at an earlier stage of the Bill in your Lordships' House and which it has now been agreed is not to be insisted upon, and the other is the public inquiry which the Government have proposed today which relates only to objections to proposals to extend the definable dock area. It is a narrower concept of public inquiry but very necessary, as I think noble Lords opposite will agree.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
56 Clause 15, page 17, leave out lines 36 and 37.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
57 Because they would exclude earas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 56, to which the Commons have disagreed, but propose

1015
in lieu thereof the Amendment to page 17, lines 36 and 37 set out in the Manuscript List.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed, but agree to the following Amendment in lieu thereof:
Page 17, leave out lines 36 and 37 and insert—"definable dock area has the meaning given by section 4".—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
58 Schedule 2, page 24, line 37, leave out from "workers" to end of line 40 and insert—

"(a) provision for training and welfare in so far as provision does not exist apart from the Scheme;

(b) the administration of any severance in accordance with the terms of any national agreement of the National Joint Council or other relevant joint industrial negotiating body."

The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
59 Because it is undesirable to restrict the matters which may be dealt with in the Scheme.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No, 58 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 59.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 59.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
60 Schedule 3, page 25, line 21, at end insert "except for qualitative checking and recording where inspecting and/or measuring and/or weighing and/or sampling is involved."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
61 Because it may be desirable to classify work which is within the terms of the Amendment.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 60 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 61.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 61.—(Lord Oram.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
62 Schedule 3, page 25, line 38, leave out from "be" to end of line 40 and insert "loaded as cargo become "cargo" when they are physically received by the stevedore, wharfinger or lighterman from the sender or his agent"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
64 Because it is undesirable that "cargo" should be defined in the manner proposed.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 62 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 64, but propose in lieu thereof the Amendment to page 25, line 39, set out on the Manuscript List.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed, but agree to the following Amendment in lieu thereof:
Page 25, line 39, leave out from "within" to "and" in line 40 and insert "a definable dock area".
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
63 Page 25, line 40, at end insert—
"(bb) goods which have been loaded as cargo in a ship cease to be so when they have been physically handed over by the stevedore, wharfinger or lighterman to the receiver or his agent; and"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
64 Because it is undesirable that "cargo" should be defined in the manner proposed.
4.20 p.m.
Lord ORAM: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 63 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 64. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 64.—(Lord Oram.)
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this was a very important Amendment. I do not propose to say anything further about it, but I wish to point out that I believe that the Government will give themselves a great deal of trouble by this division of cargo handling area and by the disagreement with the Lords' Amendments in this case. The Government will find that they will get a considerable amount of trouble for very little result.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
65 Page 26, line 12, at end insert—
"(c) by the National Freight Corporation or any subsidiary of that corporation."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
66 Because work done by employees of the National Freight Corporation ought not to be classifiable.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 65 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 66. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 66.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, is the noble Lord able to tell us why work done by employees of the National Freight Corporation "ought not to be classifiable" in the view of the Government? What do they mean by, "ought not to be classifiable"?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, in the opinion of the Government, the terms and conditions and general employment circumstances of the employees of nationalised industrise who might come within the scope of Part I of Schedule 3 are considered to be such that the bringing of their work within the Dock Labour Scheme is never likely to be justified under the provisions of Clause 8.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, does the noble Lord think that it is certain that there will never be any industrial disputes as a result of this distinction between what is done by the National Freight Corporation and what is done in exactly the same sphere by other aspects of dock labour?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, our position here is much the same as it is with the railway docks. We believe that the conditions of employment in both cases are such that there is no need for classification. Both sides of industry are carrying on and they have not got the kind of problem that we are trying to deal with, the problem of casual labour.
Lord SHENWELL: My Lords, it would help to clarify the matter if my noble friend would state specifically what is the nature of the occupation of these employ-
1018
ees of the National Freight Corporation. Does it differ fundamentally from the labour undertaken by the dockers who are embodied in this legislation?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, they work under a collective agreement under which there is complete agreement between the employer concerned and the trade union concerned, and there are conditions which are comparable with those which apply under the dock regulation scheme. We do not think that in that case it is necessary to classify the work.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
67 Page 26, line 17, at end insert—
"10A. The work of persons employed in a business on premises occupied for the purposes of that business where the terms and conditions of employment are mainly or exclusively the subject of a collective agreement unless the parties to the collective agreement further agree that the work in question may be classified."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
68 Because it may be desirable to consider work for classification without agreement of both parties to a collective agreement.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 67 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 68.
Moved, that this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 68.—(Lord Jacques.)
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain this a little? It seems to me to be a very odd Reason:
"Because it may be desirable to consider work for classification without agreement of both parties to a collective agreement."
Will not a rather awkward situation arise here?
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies to my noble friend, I should like to ask him how, in the light of what he has just said about the National Freight Corporation, he can possibly justify that Reason. If the parties can come to a collective agreement which has the effect of making it then undesirable to classify the work going on under the collective agreement, why do we have exactly the opposite view in the next Amendment?
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, we are dealing with something quite different here. The broad effect of this Amendment is similar to that of Amendment No. 78, which seeks to give the right to veto to the trade unions recognised in respect of the work concerned since 3rd December, 1975. It goes even further in that the positive agreement of both union and employer is required before the work can be classified. This is quite a different thing. It is giving not merely a right of veto but a double right of veto, a right of veto to both sides.
Viscount BARRINGTON: My Lords, can the noble Lord make a little more explicit to those who do not understand these technical terms, the meanings of the words "desirable" and "undesirable"? The last three Amendments and many before that, including the Liberal Amendment about consumers, have been rejected on the grounds that what was proposed is undesirable, which may mean undesirable to the public, undesirable to the Government, or undesirable to any one person. Here it definitely states the word "desirable" in a context where it is apparently not desirable by one of the two parties concerned. Could that point be made a little clearer?
Lord SLATER: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it could not be any clearer where one gets the employer and the trade unions to agree in toto upon an issue of this character? This is what really happens in industry. I am surprised at the attitude of some industrialists on the other side of the House who have to negotiate with trade unionists and who at some time in the course of negotiations, after long talks and deliberations in their departments, reach finality. I think that on this issue the Government are presenting this in the right way, and that it is quite clear to those people who have had experience within this operation.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, the word "desirable" is used by the Commons, and I should not like to answer for the Commons.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, there is an issue here which has been raised by my noble friend Lord Slater. Just because the employers and the unions, no matter after how many hours of
1020
argument, make an agreement, is no reason why a democratic Parliament should take it. I think that we are getting a little wide of our remit here. We are in fact giving a veto to the trade unions, because unless the employer agrees with them he cannot get by. I was a little worried when my fellow backwoodsman, the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, raised a point on the last Amendment. I did not get up, but I became a little worried and thought that possibly I should have done. I am rather worried about this one, too. I cannot really see the case for letting this one go. Now since everybody seems to have arranged things behind the scenes, I am willing not to be awkward. But what we cannot do, I should have thought, is simply to argue that because the employers and the trade unions have fixed it up between themselves, behind the scenes, none of the rest of us have anything to say. It seems to me to be destroying the idea of Parliamentary democracy. I personally am rather uncertain about whether I am willing to let this one go.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, this Amendment is much less important at this stage of the Bill than it was originally. I should like to remind noble Lords that there is a half-mile limit now, not a five-mile limit. We are saying that there is work which was done by registered dock workers. It has been taken away from the waterside, and the Board should be able to consider whether that work should or should not be classified without a veto from the employer or the trade union concerned. We say that this matter should at least be considered, but if this Amendment were carried it would not even be considered. That is the line that the Government take.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
4.30 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT
69 Schedule 3, page 26, line 18, leave out paragraph 11 and insert—
"11. Driving any vehicle whose use is mainly on public roads, whether inside or outside any definable dock area; supervision of loading and unloading such a vehicle; seeing to the security of its load."
The Commons agreed to this Amendment but proposed the following Amendment thereto:
70 Schedule 3, page 26, Line 3,—leave out ("any definable dock area") and insert ("the cargo-handling zone")
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth disagree with the Commons Amendment No. 70 to the Lords Amendment No. 69. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth disagree with the Commons Amendment No. 70 to the Lords Amendment No. 69.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
71 Schedule 3, page 26, line 22, after (12) insert
"(a)"
72 Page 26, line 23, at end insert—
"(b) such work as by local custom or usage is left to riggers and shipwrights.
Provided that nothing in (a) or (b) above shall operate to prevent a change in the local custom or usage which is agreed by a majority of the employers and unions concerned."
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
73 Because it may be desirable to clasify work which is within the terms of the Amendment.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, with the leave of the House I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendments Nos. 71 and 72 en bloc to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 73. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendments, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 73.—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
74 Schedule 3, page 26, line 35, leave out "the cargo-handling zone" and insert "a definable dock area"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
75 Because they would exclude areas within which work should be capable of being considered for classification.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 74 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 75, but propose the Amendment to page 26, line 35, in lieu thereof, set out in the Supplementary Marshalled List. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason
1022
numbered 75, but doth agree to the following Amendment in lieu thereof:
Page 26, line 35, leave out from "premises" to "or" and insert "not situated within a definable dock area ".—(Lord Jacques.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
76 Schedule 3, page 27, line 5, at end insert—
"16A. The work of persons wholly or mainly engaged in the storage of perishable foodstuffs under controlled temperature conditions, except—

(a) where such goods are discharged directly from a ship into a cold store or onto the quayside adjacent to a cold store, and where by custom and practice the handling of such goods has been dock work; or

(b) where a cold store or other premises for the storage of foodstuffs under temperature controlled conditions is or is to be established within a dock labour scheme area as an integral part of the cargo handling operation."

The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
77 Because it imposes undesirable restrictions on the classes of work which can be classified.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist upon their Amendment No. 76 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 77. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist upon the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 77.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I wonder whether the Government can help me a little on this one. The first Amendment on this makeshift Marshalled List that we have had for the first time today talks about the Secretary of State having powers, subject to all sorts of limitations, to extend contiguously to the new dock area. It seems to me that there is not an immediate possibility of cold stores which are remote from the seafront or the waterfront, outside the half-mile range which is now within the Bill, being considered for job classification as the Bill now stands. I should be grateful if the Government could give me reassurance that that is the situation.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, as I understand it, the noble Lord is dealing with cold stores slightly outside the half-mile area?
Lord MOTTISTONE: Yes, my Lords.
Lord JACQUES: There are two possibilities there. First, if the work is already being done by registered dock workers, then it could be classified in accordance with the procedures, I think under Clause 4. If the work is not so classified, then before the work could be classified it would be necessary to have an extension of the limit, and an extension of the limit would involve a public inquiry followed by an Affirmative Resolution of both Houses.
Lord MOTTISTONE: Perhaps the noble Lord could help me further. The limit could be extended only contiguously to the now-defined dock area; that is, it could not be extended five miles inland?
Lord BOOTHBY: My Lords, I should like to say that it is becoming clear now that this House is crumpling before the Government at the present time. It is insisting upon nothing. It is not insisting upon any of its Amendments; everything is being withdrawn; and I believe very strongly that, in the long run, that is not going to be any good for the Government or for this country. The proceedings this afternoon are absolutely farcical.
The Earl of GOWRIE: My Lords, from this side of the House I should like to point out that we are extremely pleased with the way things have gone. We do not like the Bill—we never have liked the Bill—but we think that the Amendments to the Bill are in accordance with what we have been fighting for over many long days, weeks and months (what seems like years), and are certainly in accordance with what was wished for by another place.
Lord HANKEY: My Lords, I do not really agree with my noble friend Lord Boothby, for once. I think invariably I otherwise do, because he is a man of very great wisdom. But I should like to say that this Bill is being handled in the way in which I think it ought to be handled. I like to see an attempt being made by the Parties on both sides of the House to agree on things so far as they can agree them. I think that the trouble with our country is that we are at present in danger of magnifying and multiplying causes of disagreement, with a view to the Parties downing each other. If we go on doing that, my Lords, it does not matter which Party is in
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power, this country is going to sink under the waves of the North Sea. So I congratulate those concerned on the way in which they have done their business. However, I do not congratulate this House on the detailed manner in which it is being conducted. I would never have allowed OEEC to have the Amendments presented in this higgledy-piggledy way when I was chairman of it, and OECD would never have permitted it. It is very hard to understand these Amendments. I am delighted there has been a certain amount of agreement, but I think it has been reached in rather a hole-in-the-corner manner; and I wish we had had time to see these Amendments. I suppose I ought to have spent the night here, or come in at 9 o'clock this morning. It is difficult.
My Lords, what I really object to about this Bill is that it is not relevant to the affairs of the docks at all. The reason the Port of London has declined is because it has been extremely badly run. The docks in London will probably never get back to what they were, and the reason is not because the dockers have not had more power; the reason is because the dockers have had too much power, and have been too well looked after. I think this Bill will probably make the position worse, and will extend the troubles to other ports. But I do not want to make a Second Reading speech about this. I just wish to register a protest from these Benches that the measures we are considering with such haste are not more relevant. In conclusion, I congratulate everybody concerned on the way in which they have reached agreement.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, may I say that the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is "Yes".
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, perhaps it would be only reasonable to add that I do not think that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has quite understood the great effect of the change in the cargo-handling zone which has been brought about. We now have an area of half a mile round the actual port, instead of an area of five miles around the entire country. within which these changes can take place. I really think that is a considerable achievement. Although we have not had to do any opposing at this stage because the Government have very

1025
wisely I think, and very graciously, given way on things, we have nevertheless been saying "Content" to a remarkable number of Amendments from this side of the House, which is not always very usual when the other place sends us back the Amendments moved by this side of the House.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, I am rather confused in all this Second Reading stuff. What was it that the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, said "Yes" to, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone? May I be reminded?
Lord JACQUES: Yes, my Lords. The noble Lord asked: "If there was a possibility of an extension of the definable dock area or cargo-handling zone, would it be an extension of one mile or ten miles? Surely it would be restricted." The answer was, "Yes, it would be restricted".
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: But restricted to what, and by what?
Lord ORAM: My Lords, the question was, "Would it be extended only contiguously to an existing area?", and the answer to that is, "Yes".
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
78 Schedule 4, page 28, line 40, leave out "18th September 1967" and insert "3rd December 1975"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
79 Because the right to object to classification should be confined to trade unions recognised in respect of the work at least since September 1967.
4.40 p.m.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 78, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 79.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 79.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, this is an agreement I should like to have seen in the Bill because I think it is unreasonable to distinguish between the
1026
rights of trade unions purely in relation to the date on which a recognition agreement was made. If those in respect of whom a recognition agreement was made before 1967 are to have the right of veto, so should those after 1967. I think it is wrong to discriminate in that way. I may say that when reading the Reason which the Commons have given for disagreeing to the Lords Amendment, which is in the following terms:
"Because the right to object to classification should be confined to trade unions recognised in respect of the work at least since September 1967.",
I cannot help wondering whether those who drafted this were very familiar with the Bill because, as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has already made clear, in dealing with Clause 8 and the right to object, a notice has to be sent out whenever the Board are considering or are about to consider proposals for classification under that clause. A notice has to be sent out both to the employers and the trade unions, so that they can make recommendations. In those recommendations, they can object and yet this Agreement says that:
"… the right to object should be confined to trade unions recognised in respect of the work at least since September 1967".
I know what they mean, but they have not got it right: and if they have not got it right, how on earth are other people to get it right—members of the public, and those who are going to have to operate under the Bill? It is a very complicated Bill. I personally let this go with great reluctance, because I think it shows so clearly how wrong it is that one section of the public should try to solve its problems at the expense of another section of the public. That is the core of the objection to the Bill.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, why does one let it go, even with reluctance? If we want to say something differently, why do we not insist on trying to get it said? We do not mean only the trade union or the trade unionist before 1967, do we? We actually mean that any body, any group of trade unionists, properly recognised and properly organised before or after 1967 should have the right to make representations—as the noble Lord said, making representations and making, if you wish, an objection. What I do not understand is why

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we let a thing go through as ill-drafted and indefensible as this, unless we are assuming that we are transferring the responsibility to the judges and assuming that if at some later stage it is moved against, the judges will say, "This is wrong", or, "It falls because we cannot interpret it".
I just do not understand. I know that both sides have done their best and, on the whole, I am willing to accept that; but they could have done better. I honestly and truthfully do not see why we let something go through in the cynical view that because it is in any case indefensible somebody else will knock it down at some later stage. I think I shall be a Not-Content on this issue.
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, there are really two points here. First, I still dislike very much the rejection of our Amendment by the Commons. Secondly, I do not like the Reason which is given for that rejection, and I was pointing out that it does not stand up. However, this is not really a matter that we can amend.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, I have raised several objections to the Bill, but the Government are right about this. What the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, is asking for is a confrontation with the dockers. That is exactly what we are trying to avoid, and that is exactly what would happen if this were not accepted. There may be some trouble arising out of this legislation, but if we can avoid it, so much the better. The reference to September 1967 is there simply because that is when the dockers came to an agreement. It is on the basis of that collective agreement that they are seeking to gain further powers; that is all. What Members of your Lordships' House sought to do was to promote a new collective agreement. That could cause a lot of trouble. The Government are right on this matter, though in many respects they have been quite wrong.
Lord MOTTISTONE: My Lords, I should like to ask for clarification whether it is not a fact that there is an opportunity for objections to be made by other trade unions which have been established after 1967 under the public inquiry system. Is there not therefore less reason for this
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Amendment than perhaps there might otherwise have been? I do not know whether or not noble Lord, Lord Jacques, heard me. I was asking whether it was not possible for other trade unions which have been established and recognised after 1967 to make an objection under the public inquiry system. Have I got the wrong end of the stick? Perhaps my noble-friend can clarify the position for me, if the Government cannot.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I think there is some misunderstanding here. First, I would say to my noble friend Lord George-Brown, that there is nothing to prevent a trade union, whether recognised or not, making representations and objections when classification is being considered. What we are considering is whether it should have a veto. We say that it should be only in the rarest circumstances that an institution outside Parliament should be given a veto. Consequently, the veto has been restricted to those trade unions which were recognised by the employer before September 1967, because it was desired to protect the long-established warehouses and cold stores, to say that they could not be classified.
What we are saying in regard to the more recent cold stores and warehouses is not that they should be classified but that they should be considered. There should not be a veto by anyone to stop them being considered. They may very well be in-lieu of work that was done at the dockside, or they may not. We think it is a matter for consideration. What we are trying to do here, and what we have been trying for all the time, is to set up peaceful means of settling disputes instead of the picketing, and so on, that went on during 1970, 1972 and 1975.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENT
80 Page 30, line 11, at end insert the following new Schedule—
"PUBLIC INQUIRIES (NOTICES AND PROCEDURES)
1. Where subsection (1) of section 4, subsection (10) of section 5 or subsection (4) of section 11 above apply the Secretary of State shall proceed in accordance with the following provisions of this Schedule.
2. The Secretary of State shall publish a notice that the draft Scheme, the proposal or the draft order (as the case may be) are available, stating where copies may be obtained and specifying a period of 40 days

1029
within which representations may be made to him about the draft Scheme, proposal or draft order.
3. A notice under paragraph 2 above shall be published—

(a) in the London Gazette, the Edinburgh Gazette, or both, according as the draft Scheme, proposal or draft order relates to ports in England and Wales, Scotland or both; and

(b) in such local newspapers or in any other ways as appear to the Secretary of State best suited for bringing the notice to the attention of persons interested;

and shall specify a place where the draft Scheme, the proposal or the draft order (as the case may be) may be inspected, and copies thereof obtained at all reasonable hours, and the time in which and the manner in which any objections thereto may be made to the Secretary of State and, subject to paragraph 4 below, the Secretary of State shall consider any objections made within the time and in the manner specified in the notice.
4. The Secretary of State shall not be required to consider any objection which does not comprise, or have submitted with it, a statement in writing setting out the specific ground of the objection and particulars of any omission, addition or modification asked for, or any objection which in his opinion is frivolous.
5. If there are no objections which the Secretary of State is required to consider, or if all such objections are withdrawn—

(a)in the case of a draft Scheme or order (either in the terms of the draft or subject to such modifications as he thinks fit, being modifications which in his opinion do not effect important alterations in the character of the draft as published), he may lay the Scheme before Parliament or make the order (as the case may be); or

(b)in the case of a proposal, forward to the Board for their consideration a copy of the report referred to in paragraph 8 below.

6. Before preparing a new Scheme, the Secretary of State may cause an inquiry to be held.
7. Where any objections are made as aforesaid and are not withdrawn, the Secretary of State shall cause an inquiry to be held by an impartial person and, where that inquiry relates to a draft Scheme or order, the Secretary of State may, after considering the report referred to in paragraph 9 below, lay the draft Scheme before Parliament or make the order (as the case may be) in the terms of the draft or subject to such modifications as he thinks fit.
8. Subsections (2) to (5) of section 250 of the Local Government Act 1972 shall apply in relation to an inquiry held under this Schedule as they apply to a local inquiry held under subsection (1) of that subsection with the omission of the word "local" from subsection (4).
9. The Secretary of State shall publish the report of the person appointed by him to hold an inquiry for the purposes of this Schedule."
The commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
81 Because provision for a public inquiry procedure is unnecessary.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 80, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 81.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 81.—(Lord Jacques.)
Lord SANDFORD: My Lords, I shall not make much of this last Amendment, because we have said everything we wanted to say earlier. But I should like to say, as I have said many times before on this Bill, that I think that the Government have imposed on this House in particular a quite impossible procedure. We have had to go through the Bill in quite inordinate haste, and as a result we have not done our job as well as we should have done. Despite that, and despite what a number of noble Lords have been saying from all around the House in the last few minutes, I think that Parliament as a whole can be well satisfied with the significant achievement that it has secured over this last week in curbing the intentions of the Government, and particularly in protecting the large number of interests that have very rightly felt themselves to be seriously threatened by the Bill.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I should just like to thank noble Lords in all parts of the House, and particularly noble Lords opposite, for their co-operation in getting on to the Statute Book what I believe is a fair and reasonable compromise of opinion in the two Houses.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

RENT (AGRICULTURE) BILL
4.51 p.m.
The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord Peart): My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Price of Wales to acquaint

1031
the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Rent (Agriculture) Bill, have consented to place their prerogative and interest, so far as they are concerned on behalf of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, DEPARTMENT of the ENVIRONMENT (Baroness Birk): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. In order to save the House hearing me make two speeches, I should like to await with interest what other noble Lords have to say and will save my remarks for winding up.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(Baroness Birk.)
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, it looks as though the tenants of the tied cottage on the Opposition Front Bench have been evicted.
Lord SWAYTHLING: My Lords, I feel very strongly that, with all the many Amendments that have been put into the Bill since it arrived in your Lordships' House, much has been done to make it less objectionable to the agricultural industry, and I trust that all the Amendments will be retained. Nevertheless, I feel sure that, if opinions were taken in the agricultural industry, practically all the farmers would wish that the Bill should not become law. It must be remembered that the farmers have the interests of their workers very much at heart, and there has not been any strike or friction between employers and employed. Also, if the opinions of farm workers were sought, I am confident that the large majority would be against the passing of the Bill. Those who studied it would know the effects. Some of the older workers approaching retiring age might wish to see it become law so that they could remain in their houses, although they are well aware of the necessity of housing their successors at work. The younger men, however, would realise that there would be many difficulties in moving to another job to gain experience and to improve their position, in order to climb the ladder of success.
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During the course of the Committee stage, the noble Lord, Lord Peart, and the noble Lord, Lord Collison, several times mentioned the question of mobility. It seems obvious that there will be much difficulty in providing houses for new workers, when they are engaged to replace a worker who is leaving his job. I trust that when the Bill is reconsidered in another place, those who vote will consider carefully all that has been said in your Lordships' House during its passage.
4.54 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, I wonder whether I may now cast such observations as I was going to make, and I apologise to your Lordships for not being in my seat when this Bill started. I am afraid that the processes of the last Bill went slightly more quickly than I anticipated.
We have now come to the last stage of the Bill and, before it returns to another place with the recommendations which your Lordships have seen fit to suggest should be made to it, I should like to take the opportunity of thanking both the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for the acceptable and courteous manner in which they have, as it were, dealt with us as an Opposition. If I may be permitted to say so, they have handled a highly contentious Bill in an exemplary fashion, in a friendly, understanding and considerate manner, and for this we are very grateful. On a personal level, this has been much appreciated and I should like to thank them as representatives of the Government for this generosity of approach. I should also like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for the way in which she has been prepared to see me individually during the Bill's progress, both outside the Chamber as well as inside it, to try to understand our concern and to see whether there was any meeting of minds. Of course, there was a pretty steely hand, even if it was a delicate one, inside the kid glove and there was not too much give, but I did not really expect that there would be very much give even though I hoped for it. But I appreciate the effort.
I only wish that there had been more give on the part of the Government, because I genuinely believe that if and when the Bill becomes law it will make inroads into the system, efficiency and

1033
running of British agriculture which are quite unprecedented, and which will be infinitely greater than the Government have begun to think likely. Although the Bill is highly contentious, at no time have my noble friends and I disputed what one might call the moral rectitude of the motives which prompted the Bill in the first place. If eviction, anxiety, indignity, fear or oppression are sought to be cured or even alleviated by the Bill, who can castigate such motives?—not I, and not, indeed, any of my noble friends behind me. These are high and worthy principles, but they generate and form strong driving forces. Those aims are, I hope, common to all of us, and in so far as we may have been contentious in some of our Amendments, it was not on those grounds where our dispute lay. Rather was it the recognition that those strong driving forces could, like a ship propelled through the water, leave behind them a wash, the impact of which could be devastating to those caught in it. This made us suggest that the officers of the watch might, with profit, look around and trim their course a little for the benefit of the occupants of the sea, as well as the occupants of the boat.
I venture to think that your Lordships' House has, over this Bill, again done what this House is supposed to do, which is to consider all the aspects of a Bill. It is very lucky for the Government that there is a Second Chamber, because as the Bill arrived to us the Government considered it sufficiently inadequately drafted that they have sought to make, and your Lordships have agreed to make, no fewer than 97 Government Amendments to the Bill, which another place will be asked to accept as improvements. We, for our part, have asked your Lordships to agree that another place should consider the inclusion of 31 Amendments—relative peanuts, numerically. But this is what your Lordships' House is for, and many hours of work, effort and thought have been given to some of these Amendments to try, in a non-Party way, to improve the Bill so that when it becomes law it will operate better.
I am bound to say that it is disheartening and disdaining in the extreme, to think that the operation of the guillotine in another place will result in many of these Amendments not even being considered or spoken to, but being frog-marched out of the Bill straight into the wastepaper
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basket by the continuous circulation of Members of another place through the Division Lobbies, irrespective of the merits or otherwise of the unheard of arguments upon which they will be voting.
I had earnestly hoped that more flexibility would be shown by the Government over "best endeavours" Those two words have scared the life out of the agricultural industry. Farmers see the prospect of the houses which are vital to the operation of their businesses being occupied by people who choose to work elsewhere. They fear for their businesses; they fear for their stock; they fear for their farms; and they fear for their future. The local authority can say, "We have used our best endeavours to re-house but we are afraid that we can't" and by those few simple words can be lost, for years, a house which is vital to a farmer. I still do not believe that that can be right. We have tried to improve those words so as not to conflict with the principle of the Bill, yet on every occasion the Government have, with a stubbornness which historically has been attributed to mules, said, "No".
We had four Amendments, each one of which was designed to put a few more teeth into the flimsy sentiments of "best endeavours" but which together might make the Bill work without debilitating agriculture. We said, "Let us put a duty on the local authority to accept the obligation to re-house". The Government said, "No". We said, "Where the ADHAC says that there is a case of extreme urgency, let the local authority re-house in three months". The Government said, "No". We said, "Let temporary accommodation, provided that it is suitable, be used only where the local authority says that it intends to re-house as soon as it can". The Government said, "No". Then, when everything else has failed and the farmer cannot regain possession of a house that is vital to the running of his farm and the local authority cannot or will not re-house, we said, "Let him put up a caravan". The Government said, "No". Indeed, as part of her argument the noble Baroness used these extraordinary words:
"I think it would be quite wrong to find justification for putting farmers or any other group in a privileged position where a change of land use is involved without first obtaining planning permission".

1035
I am bound to say with the greatest of respect to the noble Baroness, because I realise that she speaks for the Government, that I have seldom heard a more irrelevant and more unsympathetic reply. The noble Baroness's brief must have been, "Use any argument that you can think of, however inept or irrelevant, but, whatever happens, at all costs say, No". To suggest, when everything else has failed and a farmer puts up a caravan, that this is a change of land use and a privilege would be almost laughable, were it not said in earnest. It is a last desperate attempt to ensure that, where every other provision in the Bill has failed, a farmer can still carry on his business, yet the noble Baroness says that this would be a privilege.
Let us be clear that if privileges are being accorded it is this Bill which accords them. The Bill gives rights to a small section of people in tied accommodation, rights which are denied to the other 90 per cent. of people who are living in tied accommodation. It gives rights of security of tenure which are infinitely greater than those enjoyed by people in local authority housing, who are not protected by the Rent Acts, who have in law no security of tenure whatever and who can be given notice to quit their homes within 28 days. Whatever the merits, this Bill accords the privileges. I suggest that it is a degradation to the farming community, both to employees and to employers, that the Government should introduce a Bill the effect of which is such as to require a provision for caravans to be made. It is almost anachronistic, yet the effect of resisting such a provision is to result, in some cases, in the operation of farm businesses seizing up.
Throughout the Government have steadfastly refused to acknowledge this dilemma and the Government have steadfastly refused to resolve it. I fear that the Government still do not realise what they are doing. I beg them to give further consideration, even at this late stage, to the Amendments which your Lordships have passed and not automatically to seek to heave them all out in another place. In no way do these Amendments contravene the spirit of the Bill; they merely seek to make it better to operate.
My real worry throughout the whole of the Bill is that it is a Department
1036
of the Environment Bill. The Department of the Environment does not understand the problems of agriculture or the way in which it operates. This has been made crystal clear throughout by the replies which have been given. We have tried to point out to the Government not the unwisdom of the motives, because we agree with them, but the unwisdom of the proposed practices because of the far-reaching effects which they will have. Almost every argument which has been put forward against the tied cottage system in agriculture could have been put forward against the tied cottage system in any industry, yet agriculture, representing only 10 per cent. of tied cottages, has been singled out for this reform, a reform which by its very nature infers that there is no need for the principle of the tied cottage.
If that is so, why do not the Government excise the tied housing system throughout the whole country? They cannot do so because, whatever imperfections the system may have, the tied cottage system is required by the industries that it serves and it is required by the people who serve those industries. The Government and everybody else knows this, but in agriculture the Government have had the pressure of a trade union to push the case. There is nothing new in that; the pressure in the agricultural industry has been there for 70 years. What is new is that every previous Labour Government have felt that pressure but have considered it prudent, on wider grounds, to resist it. Every Labour Government since 1945 knew that their Party Manifesto contained a commitment to abolish only the agricultural tied cottage but every Labour Government until this one knew that the disadvantages of so doing outweighed the advantages. This Government, as we have seen so clearly and so frequently, voluntarily subject themselves to union pressure under the mantle of magnanimity and against all other considerations.
At a time of desperate economic crisis—nobody denies that this is what we are in—at a time of high inflation, at a time of unprecedented overseas borrowing and at a time when food prices at home are soaring, as are the costs of food imports, nobody can surely deny the simple necessity of producing as much food as possible at home. Nobody can surely deny the simple logic of encouraging

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agriculture to increase its output as much as possible in the interests of the nation. But this Government do not do that. They continually introduce legislation which, whatever its merits may be, can have at least one certain effect: a restriction upon the ability of agriculture to serve the nation and produce the food.
I am bound to remind your Lordships again of what the Government have done. They have introduced the capital transfer tax, which can only result in farms getting smaller. They have introduced the capital gains tax, which can only result in less money being available for investment in agriculture. They have introduced the Community Land Act, which can only deter building. They have introduced the development land tax, which can only deter selling. They have introduced the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act which will ensure that there are no new tenant farmers. Now they have introduced this Bill, which will give to everybody in any farm cottage at any time, and at a stroke, the right of security of tenure and the right to continue in that cottage for years. Thereby the Bill will ensure that it is more difficult for people to move from farm to farm and that efficiency is impaired; it will also ensure that no new private farm cottages are built.
It is a desperately condemnatory record. Individually the effects of these different Acts in agriculture may be justified and individually their effects may be small, but corporately their effects will be devastating. They are restrictive, they are inhibiting, they are debilitating and they are frustrating. As each Act has been given the Royal Assent, so the tourniquet around agriculture has been given a twist just at the time when in fact it ought to be released. For all its worthy humanitarian motives, which I have never failed to recognise and to acknowledge, I venture to forecast that this Bill can only impede the efficiency of agriculture. It injects a paraphernalia of committees, formulae and uncertainties into agriculture.
The Bill alone will cost £5 million to administer. What is the real cause of the problem? The cause is the shortage of housing, but despite the expenditure of £5 million not one extra house will be built. I will only say this to the noble Lord, Lord Peart, because my guess is
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that in his heart of hearts he knows that this Bill will impede agricultural output. His is an urban orientated Government. I do not say that in any derogatory sense whatever but in a factual one. It is town-based, town-bred, town-centred. He may no longer be the Minister of Agriculture but he was a very distinguished Minister of Agriculture and he is a very distinguished man. He is still a Cabinet Minister and he knows and understands agriculture. But even though he is no longer Minister of Agriculture I want to tell him that the agriculture industry still looks to him in a way which I dare say modesty may prevent him from recognising, to uphold and to project the case and the cause of agriculture among his colleagues whose many qualities may well not necessarily include an intimate understanding of the workings of agriculture. The noble Lord, Lord Peart, has that knowledge and if agriculture is to be permitted to give what it should to the nation at this particular time he may be aware that the agricultural industry still looks to him to put the case and he should not be shy to use his knowledge or his influence in conference with his colleagues.
I conclude by saying that, despite our differences, despite the fact that I feel the effects of this Bill on agriculture have not begun to be appreciated, I am grateful to noble Lords opposite and especially to the noble Lord, Lord Collison, who has always expressed his views so modestly and has at least tolerated ours with at least no outward expression of total abhorrence. I should like to thank them for the friendly and courteous way in which the proceedings on this Bill have been conducted.
5.13 p.m.
Lord MIDDLETON: My Lords, I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Ferrers that no one with any knowledge of the agriculture industry, and certainly no employer of farm workers, can fail to be in sympathy with the motives behind the long campaign by the National Union of Agricultural Workers to disengage the farm workers' conditions of employment from the circumstances in which they are housed. I have now spent more hours than I care to think about, not only in your Lordships' House but also before the Bill was drafted. Having listened carefully to the arguments, however desirable the objective, I have to

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say that when we come to frame legislation, designed in the words of the Consultation Document to remove the social objections to the tied cottage system in a manner consistent with the Government's wider policies and objectives for the national economy as a whole, so that its form and effects ensure that there is no adverse effect upon the efficiency of the agricultural industry, then inevitably we run into the very real difficulties that are apparent when one considers, as your Lordships have done with very great care, the provisions of this Bill.
The two objectives are virtually irreconcilable and that, I have no doubt at all, was obvious to the Department even before the Bill was drafted; but with very great ingenuity they worked out how to give security by extending the Rent Acts for the protection of farm workers. Then we come on to the central problem: once you give protection you are faced with the geographical fact that the farm workers' houses are not conveniently situated in towns and urban areas; they are scattered around the countryside so as to be placed as near as possible to, and usually on, the farm holding which provides employment. Then you are faced with the economic fact that these houses are part of the fixed capital of the farm, just like the farmhouse itself. It is difficult to work many farms without some service housing and some farms cannot be worked at all without some service housing. So how do you get over the problem that arises when a farm worker leaves his employment but remains fast in his former employer's house? "Ah", said the Government, "You put a duty on local authorities to re-house that man, provided, of course, that the farmer can first establish that he must have the house in order to work his farm. That will solve the problem."
But now we come to what seems to me to be an absurdity. Even as things are, without this Bill, the old spectre of the farm worker being turned out of his house with his family and effects, on to the road at the whim of a capricious farmer, to all intents and purposes has been laid to rest. We have had the Rent Act 1965 where an employer can only obtain repossession of a service house at a county court; and Section 33 of that Act says that the court may suspend the execution of any order
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they may make and gives power for an extension of suspension.
Then we have Section 99 of the Agriculture Act 1970 which requires a court to grant suspension of an order for repossession for at least six months, and that suspension can, of course, be extended under the 1965 Rent Act. Finally, we have the Employment Protection Act which prevents unfair dismissal. One is therefore tempted to wonder whether the present Bill was necessary at all. But even with the present Bill in operation, as it soon will be, does it really afford any better security for the farm worker in the long term? Suppose a man gives up his job on the farm and becomes a statutory tenant; suppose the farmer needs the house for a key incoming worker and after all the procedure for repossession, application by the farmer, ADHAC, housing authority decisions and all the rest of it, the outgoer is offered a council house suitable in every way, and he accepts it and moves into it, what security of tenure has he got then? As my noble friend Lord Ferrers has just told us, he could be given 28 days' notice for any reason whatever and all the council has to do is to go through the formality of obtaining a court order and the man can be evicted. Is he really going to be any better off than he is at present?
As to the Amendments which your Lordships have made to this Bill, my noble friend Lord Ferrers referred just now to the fact that the overwhelming number were made by the Government, and that is in itself an indication of the complexities involved in drafting this Bill in a satisfactory form. I will mention just two of the Government's Amendments since they are so obviously helpful. The elimination of Clause 32 and the amendment to Clause 30(6) setting a limit to the time in which a local authority must make a decision. I only wish the Government had been equally helpful over meeting our requests to make some provision for temporary accommodation. Here, in my view, they have been unreasonably inflexible and I agree entirely with my noble friend Lord Ferrers on that point.
I do not know how many of our Amendments will be accepted by the Government in another place, although I have a fair idea. Nor do I know what your Lordships will decide to do when the

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Bill returns from another place. We have been very thoroughly into the arguments for and against making some provision for temporary accommodation in a case which may so easily arise where a farmer, in order to maintain production, must have vacant possession of a house for a key worker and the local authority cannot find another house, for the man who is stuck there.
This, incidentally, is the very situation which is bothering those farm workers with whom I have discussed this Bill. Of course, they form a very small number, but what they fear is an end to the free circulation which gives mobility and freedom of choice, in my part of England at any rate. What worries them is the thought that when they want to move, after promotion or for any other reason, they will not find a house to go with the new job because there will be someone there who cannot move out. My noble friends Lord Ferrers and Lord Burnham have put with all the force in their power the arguments for temporary accommodation. I firmly believe that the two Amendments now in the Bill, or something very similar if the Government can think up wording which is better, should remain. If all our other Amendments are rejected and these two remain, the legislation might just be made to work. A great deal of difficulty and inconvenience will be suffered by farmers, but it might just work. I agree with my noble friend Lord Ferrers that it will work just that much better if the Amendment deleting the words "best endeavours" and substituting the wording of Section 9 of the Land Compensation Act 1973 is also left intact for the legal reasons I argued on Committee.
My Lords, I was particularly impressed by the quite independent opinion from the Cross-Benches, voiced by the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, on this matter. If I may say so, with his highly trained and logical mind, the noble Lord saw, as soon as the arguments were developed in Committee and on Report, that the lack of provision in the Bill for temporary accommodation was a major defect. He saw from an entirely unbiased position how weak were the Government's arguments deployed in resisting the suggestions we put forward which we felt were practical. It is not easy for those of us who have declared an interest as owners of a farm or farms, with herdsmen, shepherds, or other workers in
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service housing, to escape the possible criticism that we are unable to look with a detached view at this Bill. However, I believe such criticism would not be justified. I know we have accepted the principles behind the Bill, and our attempts to improve it are a sincere effort to make it work.
I am encouraged, by the support we have had from other parts of the House, to think that there is a good, logical case for the two temporary accommodation Amendments. Therefore, I urge the Government to look very carefully at the need which they highlight, to make it possible first, for a court to consider a temporary house as alternative accommodation, provided it is suitable, and secondly, for temporary accommodation to be available for an incoming key worker without endless delays in planning procedure, not to speak of outright refusal which one would get in the case of a national park. If the Bill comes back to this House on Friday next without such provisions left in, then I believe your Lordships will be justified in taking the view that the Bill would not be workable.
5.25 p.m.
Lord COLLISON: My Lords, I apologise for not putting down my name on the list. I did not intend to speak again, but in view of what has been said I am prompted to say a few more words. First, may I repeat what I said before, that I appreciate the humanity with which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, has approached this problem, disagreeing as I do with the practical issues he has brought to bear on the problem. May I thank him also—it would be churlish of me not to do so—for his kind words about me.
With regard to what was said about the Bill, particularly with regard to what the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said, continuously throughout this debate, reference has been made to other people living in tied cottages. Indeed, there are other people living in tied cottages. I am quite sure that at some time, where such a situation is improper for the people concerned, it will be dealt with. But some of the references—for example, the old chestnut about the Prime Minister living in a tied house—I really thought were inappropriate to drag into a debate of this kind. To compare the situation of the

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Prime Minister, or any other highly paid worker, with that of the agricultural worker is quite impossible, the two situations are entirely different. It is so damaging for the agricultural worker, and it is a situation so easy to deal with for people in other circumstances.
My Lords, reference has been made to the mineworkers and to the railwaymen. But I would point out that the railwaymen and the mineworkers are employed by one employer, not by thousands of employers. So far as the mineworkers are concerned, when issues arise affecting mineworkers in tied cottages a joint committee has been set up by the employers and trade unions to deal with such cases—but I must not make a Second Reading speech. I listened to the suggestion being made that the Government have given way to trade union pressure. I referred to this before when I spoke on Second Reading. What pressure? If a resolution is passed which requests something of a Government, any Government, that is pressure which I accept is a perfectly proper procedure to follow. But the National Union of Agricultural Workers has not threatened to go on strike, to bring the industry to a standstill; it has not held a pistol to anyone's head. It has simply argued the case, as the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, accepted, on humanitarian grounds, and has pointed out the evils of the tied cottage system. The union has asked the Government to do something about it, and one should not blame the Government for responding after so many years.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said the Amendments which had been introduced were not contrary to the principle of the Bill. Yet, against our wishes, the dairymen and stockmen have been eliminated from the Bill, thus cutting the effect of the Bill in half, or perhaps even more so.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, will the noble Lord, Lord Collison, forgive me for interrupting him?—because I know he would not wish to misconstrue anything I said. At that juncture, when I was speaking, I was referring to the four Amendments to deal with "best endeavours".
Lord COLLISON: Yes, indeed, my Lords. Some of the Amendments, at any rate, are much more serious. This is one
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of them. Then, there was the attempt to introduce the matter of misconduct as being a reason for not giving security to the worker. A very famous and a very great man, some years ago now, referring to another perhaps much more important matter, said, "Some chicken, some neck!" But if these are peanuts, these are some peanuts! I am very anxious indeed that the National Union of Agricultural Workers, and people like myself—I am no longer active with that union—should see something which we have regarded as a social evil for such a long time dealt with, and dealt with finally. I have said before, and I repeat, that I do not believe that the fears that people have expressed will become fact. There is a great exaggeration here. I have said it before and I say it again—there will be a great exaggeration. There can be the odd case of difficulty, and I have no doubt there will be. But by and large I am sure the new procedure will work. Time will prove whether I am right or wrong, or whether noble Lords opposite are right or wrong. We must wait and see. But I am convinced in my own mind of what I say.
From time to time—not too much I hope—I have intervened in this debate because it is a matter which affects my own feelings so very strongly. In another way I have enjoyed it. Perhaps I have felt a little "het up" at times but, on the whole, I have enjoyed the crossfire of debate. For myself, and if I may for the National Union of Agricultural Workers (and I am not pointing a pistol now), may I offer our sincere thanks to the noble Lord the Leader of the House and to the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for the able and efficient way they have dealt with this Bill. They will, I am sure, be thanked for doing so by the union throughout the years to come.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, as it is the final day of this Bill which we have been discussing I should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Peart, and the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, for the way in which they have listened to us, discussed and argued with us. At times, we have won in a Division. I hope very much that they will encourage their supporters in another place to look at some of our Amendments with a generous eye, realising that, so far as my

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colleagues and I are concerned, they are put forward for two reasons.
First, we want to have a very efficient agriculture at this time. It is vital that we cut down on our imports of food. The second point—and I think the noble Lord, Lord Collison, will agree with me—is that the relationship between farmers and farm workers, whether expressed through the National Farmers' Union or the National Workers' Union, is one of the very best in the country. There is not a farmer whom I have known who has not been deeply concerned about his workers and eager to do the best for him and to provide him with accommodation that bears comparison with accommodation for anyone working in industry. The feeling between the farm worker and the farmer, as to 90 per cent. or perhaps 95 per cent., is very good indeed and I do not think that any agricultural workers would feel that they were being hardly treated by the farmer if conditions arose whereby they wanted to retire or wanted to move and we had to get someone else into their house because it is the only one which could be used for dairying or for a shepherd working up in the hills. When you are discussing a Bill of this kind, these things make a great deal of difference.
I do not wish to imply any criticism of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, but I am sorry that this is not a Department of Agriculture Bill. We have all worked with the Department of Agriculture over the years and we know how understanding and knowledgeable are the officials and the local representatives of the Department and how much help we can get from them. They understand about agricultural workers just as well as they understand about helping us to improve production. As I say, there is no criticism of the noble Baroness, Lady Birk, who has been excellent all through, but her Department is not concerned about the industry. We are concerned about the industry and we want to do the best we can. Not long ago the Government issued a White Paper Food From Our Own Resources and I took this very much to heart. I felt that we must do everything we could to utilise the land better, to produce more and so on. This Bill is going to make it much more difficult.
In some areas there are spare houses and it will not be so difficult, but in other
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areas it will be frightfully difficult. That is why I support what I call the halfway house, something which will tide over the difficulty of getting another house for a man, either the one who is leaving to go into a council house or the one who is arriving to go into one of the farm houses. I hope the Government will put this to their supporters in another place. The halfway house would make it possible to continue to increase production as we all want to do. A great deal of damage could be done to production and efficient agriculture if our Amendments are turned down. I know that all our Amendments will not be accepted, but if they will accept some that bear on agriculture, on farming and on production it would help a great deal. The farm worker is vital in this matter. I am no longer on a county council, but if I were I would take a very strong line with county councillors and say that they must help to rehouse and to provide housing for agricultural workers. If this Bill becomes law, it must be an absolute obligation that the local authority should understand and know what is expected of them. I should take a very tough line. If the Bill is to be effective and if it is to be possible from the farming point of view, the good will and help of local authorities is vital. I would impress upon county councillors the importance of rehousing agricultural workers. If that means delay in some areas, I am sure the halfway house idea is one worth pursuing.
My Lords, this is an extraordinary Bill in some ways. Someone said that only 10 per cent. of people living in tied cottages are in agriculture and that 90 per cent. are in other industries. I do not know what would happen if the principle were applied to the other 90 per cent. There is no doubt that there would be chaos. I want the best for production and for the farm worker, and there must be some compromise on this or it could be a disaster for farming and production.
5.37 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I hope the House will forgive me for intervening in the debate, but there are one or two points which have been raised since I have been in the House and I hope I can help the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and others to realise that their fears are unfounded. First, I should like to say that I think

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this debate has been carried on in a very good way indeed. The case on both sides has been presented extremely well. One of the main arguments or contentions is that there is good faith between the employer and the employed in the agricultural sphere.
I think there is very little which noble Lords opposite and the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, have to fear. As I understand it, this Bill will deal with a very small number of people. There may be some who would take advantage of the situation as it now stands, but I think that the fear expressed in the debate of it being a disaster, a crisis, that agriculture will practically disappear is entirely unfounded. I am convinced by the arguments used on the other side that there is no fear of that. On the contrary, we on this side fear that people can be turned out without having any other place to go to. That is something which should be considered and which the Bill intends to consider.
The noble Earl, in a very interesting speech, referred to one aspect of the situation with regard to council houses. I agree with him that under normal conditions a council can turn a tenant out, but if he will look at the Bill itself, one would hardly call it "suitable accommodation" if a council were to offer the person a place to live in and there was any likelihood of them turning that person out. It must be suitable in every respect. One can well imagine what would happen, assuming that a council had in fact given alternative accommodation to a farm employee on the grounds referred to in the Act itself, if they took an arbitrary step to turn that person out, unless of course that person was undesirable or in some way or other came within the ordinary terms on which a protected tenancy could be terminated. So I do not think anyone need fear about that side of it. I do not think the noble Earl need have sleepless nights over that. If anything were to happen about which the public, Members of Parliament or other people interested in the welfare of individuals heard, I cannot imagine that the council would be a very long-lived one.
Generally, I come back to the point we have been making. Those of us who have thought about tied cottages for years have always felt that they are an anomaly in so
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far as the Rent Acts are concerned. The whole idea of the Rent Acts from the beginning was to give security to people who were in a position where they might be turned out. It goes back a long way. I remember that it all started at the time of the First World War, when many people were turned out by unscrupulous landlords—again I say unscrupulous ones, which means by very far a minority. Consequently Acts had to be brought in to protect persons from being turned out, and also at that time from paying higher rents. It is consistent with that policy. And although noble Lords opposite have said that I am wrong in this respect, in my view that policy has been an absolute godsend to millions of people in this country since the Acts were introduced. The position of the tied cottage is an anomaly in the circumstances, and I hope that noble Lords opposite will realise that that is so.
We take into consideration the fact that good employers and employees in the agricultural industry get on very well with each other and would be very considerate towards each other in respect of this particular problem, but if the position were to remain as it is those who are really in difficulty because the employer is not as good as he should be, could be turned out.
In the circumstances I think we ought to accept the Act. Quite a number of the Amendments have been—I nearly said rushed through the House; I hope my noble friends will not take that too hard. After all, noble Lords opposite are much greater in number, and I have been sufficiently long in Parliament to know that when the numbers are available it is easy to get them, irrespective of how many are on the other side. They have managed to alter certain parts of the Act which otherwise they would not have done. I hope that when the Bill comes hack from the other place, after due consideration of the points they have raised, they will not obstruct what is an extremely useful and beneficial Act.
5.45 p.m.
Lord WISE: My Lords, we have spent many hours discussing this Bill in the past few weeks. May I very briefly say that I hope your Lordships will give this Bill a Third Reading. May I also hope

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that the Government and the Members in another place, when they discuss the Bill in the time available to them under the guillotine, will feel able to accept many of the Amendments that we have made, for with the greatest respect I consider that the Bill has been greatly improved by many of the Amendments which your Lordships have made. In particular, I hope the Government and another place will accept, perhaps in their entirety, the Amendments which we have made regarding provision of alternative accommodation, especially where the committees have decided that the need is urgent.
During our deliberations we have not lost sight of the needs of the agricultural industry, the needs of the land and the needs of the staff on that land. This provision of alternative accommodation is, I feel, the whole crux of the Bill. If it is going to work—and I think it will work—it depends entirely upon the ability of the local authorities to play their part. I think one recognises that they will have extreme difficulties in many instances, but the Amendments which we have passed will go a long way, I feel, to alleviating those problems and difficulties. Possibly too much accent has been placed throughout the whole of the Bill on security of tenure as opposed to the removal of the fear of eviction. It is this removal of the fear of eviction which is the reason why I support the Bill. I hope that it will foster and enhance the excellent relationships which exist now between employer and employee within the whole industry.
5.48 p.m.
Lord SANDYS: My Lords, we have had a full debate on the Bill and my remarks will be relatively brief. I cannot, however, restrain myself from commenting on what the noble Lord, Lord Janner, said, because, of course, he speaks from very long experience of the law. His reference to the very first Rent Act of 1915 drew out attention to this problem, which is, of course, confusing the agricultural scene with the broad issue of housing in the country as a whole. I must say that it impressed me as an extraordinary argument for a very astute lawyer such as Lord Janner to use, to compare what is the law for one of these categories; that is, agriculture, with a law and convention for the other; that is, the public sector housing.
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My Lords, I feel that the heart of our discussions has centred upon the irreconcilable objectives within the Bill. I think my noble friend Lord Ferrers stated the case very clearly when he said that he believed that the results of this Bill when it becomes an Act will be restrictive, debilitating and frustrating. Immediately I turn to that basic document, for the health of agriculture, Food from our own Resources, so aptly quoted by my noble friend Lady Elliot. Once again, when one comes to the end paragraph of the same White Paper Cmnd. 6020 where we reach the summary and conclusions, there is a very important sentence which perhaps I may be allowed to quote. In paragraph 57 it says this:
"The Government will frame their agricultural policies in the light of these conclusions."
My Lords, unfortunately they have not framed their agricultural policies in the light of those conclusions. One of the basic conclusions was to expand output. One of the basic provisions for expanding output is, of course, the healthy morale of the industry as a whole. How right my noble friend Lord Middleton was when he referred to mobility of labour. Within mobility of labour is the implicit argument that those who work within the industry should be able to move from a job on one farm or one group of farms to another without difficulty; that there is a career structure, an opportunity to go from one stage of their particular career to another to get better jobs with relative ease.
My Lords, it is our firm conviction that the results of this Bill will make it much more difficult for the energetic and enthusiastic farm worker, in whatever branch of the industry, to do what he wishes to do; that is, to progress up the ladder. I should also like to examine the other end of the ladder, the retirement end, and the situation of the pensioner. Here I believe that the Government have reached yet another of the irreconcilable problems to which we have attempted to adduce our minds.
My noble friend Lord Gisborough addressed his mind to this and gave us the opportunity on Report, as indeed I gave your Lordships the opportunity in Committee, to discuss an Amendment dealing with this particular problem. The Amendment on Report is numbered 42 in the Marshalled List and refers to this

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particular situation. Twenty thousand retired farm workers are at present housed by the industry and one can only hope that the situation will obtain in years to come, but obviously it will not because the housing situation is being placed artificially within the restrictions so aptly described as restrictive, debilitating and frustrating, by my noble friend Lord Ferrers. I believe that the book to which the Government should address their mind is that very important little document called Small is Beautiful by Professor Schumacher. The industry itself is dependent on a very large number of individual enterprises. Some may be relatively larger than others, but the essence is that they are small enterprises when controlled by an individual farmer.
I believe that the Government have got the mores of the farm industry wrong. Therefore, we have these solutions which they put forward and I believe that it is going to come to a situation which has in no way been exaggerated. We have been accused of exaggeration by the noble Lord, Lord Collison. We have been accused of exaggeration by the noble Lord, Lord Janner. I do not think the noble Baroness has accused us of exaggeration, because I think she has taken a more reasoned view of the industry. I should like to reply to that in the words used by Sir Winston Churchill, as the noble Lord, Lord Collison, was good enough to refer to him. In a speech made by Sir Winston on 22nd January 1941 in the House of Commons, he said this:
"I do not resent criticism, even when, for the sake of emphasis, it parts for the time being with reality."
My Lords, I believe that the Government in bringing forward this Bill have parted completely with reality. I believe that if the noble Lord, Lord Janner—and I say this with respect to him—had discussed this in some depth with the individual farmers, he would feel that we have not exaggerated over much. I believe that the Amendments which we have pursued in your Lordships' House have been immensely worth while for the industry as a whole.
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, may I first thank the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for his extremely kind remarks to my noble friend Lord Pearl and myself,
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and also for what he said about the atmosphere of the progress of this Bill through this House. I think it is quite true that there has been a fierce battle at every stage, but it has been conducted in a fairly sunny atmosphere. I should also like to thank noble Lords from all sides of the House for those constructive contributions which have been made during the various stages of the Bill. This evening, I should also like to thank my noble friends Lord Collison, Lord Janner and Lord Wise who spoke in favour of the Bill.
It is true that some of the Amendments tabled represented genuine attempts to improve the Bill. On a few, we were able to meet the Opposition—for example, by providing time limits within which local authorities must decide on applications for rehousing. On many others, I am sure—at least, I hope, I am less sure now, having heard speeches of noble Lords—we have been able to convince noble Lords that their anxieties were unnecessary. It is true that a large number of Government Amendments have also been made. Some were to meet representations made in another place and others were fairly technical Amendments, unavoidable in a Bill of this complexity, but I think very important for interpretation. These were agreed upon without contention.
Yet it would be foolish not to accept that real differences have reared their controversial heads between us over the Bill. Of the eight groups of Amendments—and as Lord Ferrers said, they comprised 31 individual Amendments which noble Lords opposite pressed to Division and defeated the Government—three stand out. They have the effect of removing the Bill's protection from a large number, possibly the majority, of agricultural workers living in tied accommodation. These are the Amendments which first exclude dairy farming, livestock keeping and breeding from the activities which count as agriculture for the purpose of the Bill; secondly, the Amendments dealing with forestry, which also remove forestry from the activities which count as agriculture for the purpose of the Bill. No wonder the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, said that he found it less objectionable at this stage. Thirdly, the Amendments preventing agricultural workers from

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gaining protection until they had completed almost four years of full-time work. Even then, they would lose that protection each time they moved farms.
As my noble friend said in Committee, the effect of the Amendments on the definition of "agriculture" will be to remove the protection of the Bill from some 17,000 workers who are engaged full time in dairy farming, livestock keeping and forestry. As my noble friend Lord Collison said, this is hardly peanuts. But because the qualifying worker test is based on whole-time working in agriculture as defined in the Bill, these Amendments also mean that many other farm workers, who do some work in those activities and some in others, may also not qualify for protection. That is why I have said that these Amendments would exclude the majority agricultural workers living in tied accommodation.
Then the third Amendment, which excludes a significant number of agricultural workers, is the Amendment which increases the period for which employees must work whole-time in agriculture from two years to four, and also requires that the last 50 weeks must have been with the current employer. This Amendment will also remove the protection of the Bill from a large number of genuine agricultural workers. We estimate that there are some 7,000 workers living in tied accommodation who have completed more than two but less than four years of whole-time agricultural work, and also that at any time there are 5,000 such workers who have been with their current employer for less than one year.
A great deal of discussion and consultation took place over this particular clause. The National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, with some reluctance accepting the idea, wanted to restrict it to one year. There can be no pretence that this Amendment is designed to help local authorities. It was, after all, the Association of District Councils' view that the qualifying period should be two years. This Amendment, like those restricting the definition of agriculture, was purely aimed at reducing the coverage of the Bill. In doing so, I believe that it would do exactly the reverse of what has been cited, and that it will stop mobility and act as a disincentive to young people to come into agriculture.
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I must say that I find it rather hard to see how these changes tally with what has been said this afternoon about revision, and also with Lord Carrington's claims, which I saw and heard him proclaim on television, that noble Lords opposite are merely concerned with revision. It took two hours to take dairy farming, livestock keeping and breeding straight out of the Bill, which was really taking the large part of the guts out of it. If that is revision, then it is a funny sort of revision to me when you really dig up the Bill in that way. One hour later forestry was felled, so another great slice of the Bill went out.
Yet in this Bill the ADHACs, the Advisory dwelling-house Agricultural Committees, are being set up in order to act in those very cases of urgency which come within the definition of dairy farming, stock breeding and livestock keeping. So immediately there is thrown out of the Bill the part which is absolutely vital to it, and together with the Amendments that have been made they have taken away a great deal of the object in the work of the ADHACs. As the National Executive of the Agricultural Union have said:
"this amounts to an emasculation of a reform that has been fought for for so many years by agricultural workers."
I think, in this area, less talk about revision and more talk about demolition would be more to the point.
The remaining Amendments which I believe important to mention are those altering the re-housing obligation in Clause 28(8), to which the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, referred, and on which he put so much stress. The effect of these is that local authorities would be obliged, by law, to give an absolute, automatic overriding priority to the re-housing of ex-agricultural workers and their dependants. There could be no question, the way the Bill is now framed, of authorities considering the claims of other groups—the homeless, families living in slum, insanitary or overcrowded accommodation, or even people whose homes have been compulsorily purchased. You may ask why not. The reason is that the reference to authorities considering the competing claims on accommodation they can provide has now been deleted.
Therefore, as the Bill now stands, if an authority were to give priority to a homeless family over an ex-farmworker,

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they would, irrespective of the relative urgency of the two cases, run the risk of having to pay damages to the farmer. Noble Lords opposite must face up to the real effects of their Amendments, and not simply pretend that they will merely ensure that farmers are given the sort of priority they deserve. I do not believe that noble Lords opposite can really want to see non-urgent agricultural class cases take precedence over other, highly pressing ones. If they do, they are horribly wrong. If they do not, they are horribly mistaken in what they have done to the Bill. But that is the effect of their Amendments.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, came back once again to the question of his Amendment on caravans. I can only repeat that it would seem absolutely wrong to cut across the whole of our planning law and planning permission in this particular way and for one particular purpose. What I promised on Report—and I have carefully re-read it—was to do all that we can, and I can, to see that local authorities give some priority to the consideration on planning grounds, but to cut across and again demolish the planning procedure in this way would seem to be absolutely wrong.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, the noble Lord, Lord Middleton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot, have all referred to temporary accommodation, and we debated the issue on several occasions in Committee and on Report. I am sorry that we have not been able to agree with the Amendments which noble Lords opposite put down on this subject. I note their emphasis on the idea that any temporary accommodation must fulfil the requirements of suitability and be followed up by permanent accommodation. The noble Lord, Lord Middleton, said that he would not forecast the attitude that he and his noble friends would take to the consideration of your Lordships' Amendments in another place. Equally, I cannot forecast what attitude will be taken in another place on these Amendments. But I am sure that what your Lordships have said today, and indeed on Report, will be studied carefully and then a decision will be reached on it.
Noble Lords have claimed that they share the Government's concern over the
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inequities of the agricultural tied cottage system. The words "humane" and "humanitarian" have been used all the way through by noble Lords from all over the House. Indeed, today the noble Earl referred to the moral rectitude of the motives. But, quite frankly, when all the words have passed under the various verbal bridges what noble Lords opposing the Bill really want to do is to preserve the status quo. And what does it represent? It represents a system that is archaic and inequitable—a system which even the Journal of the National Farmers' Union has described as "uncertain, lengthy, unpleasant and costly". Many opposing the Bill seem to think everyone will be frozen on their farms and in their cottages. This is nonsense. The Bill does not mean that the process of movement and promotion will not continue. Indeed, I believe that they will increase as young people will not want to assume the aspects of agricultural antiquity empitomised by the tied cottage. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, that farmworkers as well as farmers are involved in our food production industry, so one has to look at both sides of the industry and see that both are satisfied.
I think that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, displayed a streak uncommon to him of a very strong built-in pessimism, particularly when he rattled off what I felt was his list of despair. It is true that other industries have tied cottages, but not right to criticise that and at the same time say that one should not at least start somewhere. The place to start was obviously with agriculture, where there has been a commitment over all these years. The fact that it has not been dealt with earlier is no argument for saying that it should not be dealt with if this needs doing, and I think that it has been proved that it does. Although it is long overdue, it should be done as soon as possible.
The Bill removes from the wide range of agricultural workers their present worries about what the future holds, especially after retirement. I recognise, as did my noble friend Lord Peart, on Report, exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, said when she referred to relationships in the agricultural industry; that the overall record of the industry in providing for its retired workforce is a proud one. Nevertheless, we all know—I know this from my limited

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experience of agriculture—that they need more reassurance than being told of the 20,000 or so cases where pensioners or their widows still occupy farm cottages.
They cannot close their eyes to those cases where this does not happen. Nor does it give them individually the assurance they need and confidence in their future. Thus, they want to be certain that they will not be ordered out or taken through the courts either at the end of their job on the farm or after they have retired, and retired workers in particular need to be sure that a change in ownership of the farm is not going to threaten them with the anxieties they face under the present system. In my view, not enough stress was placed on this aspect in our debates; the fact that a change in ownership can result in changes in whole attitudes or in the composition of a farm. This does not apply only to the retired; the Bill at long last will set their minds at rest by offering to them more present security than the good will of their current landlord.
My noble friend and I, as we have said at earlier stages, believe the Bill will work. We believe that the advisory committees will have a valuable role to play and that the local authorities will take their statutory obligation—as set out originally in the Bill—very seriously. Once farmers, farm workers and local authorities have become attuned to the Bill's basic concept, they will, I believe, recognise this long overdue reform as a vast improvement and will not adopt a "No, it certainly cannot work" attitude but will be determined to make it work and be determined to make it work successfully.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Lord Derwent): My Lords, I do not think we can go further until we know about the consent of Her Majesty and the Prince of Wales.
Lord PEART: That was given at the beginning, my Lords.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, that was given at the beginning by my noble friend Lord Peart.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry, my Lords; evidently the lines of communication between the Deputy Speakers did not work.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

RACE RELATIONS BILL
6.14 p.m.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord Harris of Greenwich): My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Reasons and Commons Amendments be now considered.
Moved, That the Commons Reasons and Commons Amendments be now considered.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

COMMONS REASONS FOR DISAGREEING TO CERTAIN LORDS AMENDMENTS, COMMONS AMENDMENT'S TO A LORDS AMENDMENT AND COMMONS AMENDMENTS TO WORDS RESTORED TO THE BILL AND MOTION TO BE MOVED ON CONSIDERATION OF ONE OF THE COMMONS REASONS
[References are to Bill [266]as first printed by the Lords. Commons Amendments and Reasons are in italic. The Motion is printed in bold type.]
1 Clause 1, page 2, line 1, leave out "he cannot show to be" and insert "is not".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
2 Because the Commons consider it appropriate that the onus of establishing that a requirement or condition which has been shown to be discriminatory is justifiable should rest on the respondent.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 1 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 2. The issue embodied in this Amendment has been debated extensively both in your Lordships' House and in another place, so I shall be brief. The issue before us is not whether the burden of proof under the Bill should in general he on the respondent; in general the burden of proof under the Bill is on the complainant. The issue we are considering is the much narrower one of where the burden of proof should lie in respect of one of the elements of indirect discrimination. The complainant has to show that he is put at a disadvantage by a requirement or condition which is discriminatory in its effect. After the complainant has established this, it should,

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the Government believe, be for the respondent to justify the requirement or condition.
The primary questions of fact to be determined in a case of indirect discrimination are these: first, has a requirement or condition been applied to the complainant; secondly, has he failed to comply with it; thirdly, has his failure to comply with it operated to his detriment: fourthly, is the condition or requirement such that the proportion of those of the complainant's racial group who can comply with it considerably smaller than the proportion of those not of his racial group who can do so; and fifthly, is the condition or requirement justifiable irrespective of the racial group of those to whom it is applied?
Of these five questions, the Bill requires the complainant to satisfy the court or tribunal on the balance of probabilities that the answer to the first four are in the affirmative. This is a substantial task which should not be underestimated. What the Government are saying is that if, and only if, the complainant can prove on the balance or probabilities that the answer to these four questions is in the affirmative, then it is reasonable to require the respondent to prove in answer to the fifth that the condition or requirement was justifiable. I beg to move.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 2.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I have been much concerned as to how to deal with these wretched Reasons put forward by the Commons and how to handle the debate in general. It might be for the convenience of the House if I made in effect one speech on this Amendment indicating my general approach to the matter, and then perhaps we can take the others rather more shortly.
When the Bill came up for Second Reading, I prophesied that it would do damage to race relations instead of achieving the object we all have in mind, which is to improve race relations. Rather to my surprise, it can already be shown to have had that effect; I do not want to rub the recent by-elections in the
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nose of the Government because I do not want to intrude on private grief. On the other hand, I must remind the Government of the fact that the National Front so vastly increased its support at them and that some of the other fringe candidates had a racialist tinge to the rather peculiar descriptions of their candidature. That is exactly what I prophesied would happen. If one looks for the causes, it is almost certain that the cause was the introduction of and the publicity given to this Bill through Parliament. That is what has caused the disquiet, which these extreme Right-Wing elements, if that is the right description, have used as a source of recruitment.
This, I fear, will reproduce itself because the supporters of the principal contentious features of the Bill proceed, I believe, on a totally false conception of what will improve and what will damage race relations in this country. I have never sought to deny that legislation has some valuable role to play in the improvement of race relations; I have wearied the House and previous Parliaments on this subject for so long that I will not rehearse the ways in which I think it can improve race relations. But in order to improve race relations one must have a fairly clear idea as to what is the unease which has spread throughout the country and how it can be allayed or further exacerbated.
A recent example of the mistaken view which has prevailed so widely and which has produced the Bill and the Amendment was seen in the way in which Mr. Powell's recent speech was treated in the country. First, the prominent leader of a racial minority produced a trailer which advertised the speech in advance. Before it was delivered, he said how dreadful it was going to be, with the result that every newspaper took it up. When it was delivered it received the publicity which was largely due to the trailer and when it had been delivered the same individual gave it a follow-up by saying that Mr. Powell ought to be prosecuted for it—a situation to which we shall revert when we come to the Amendments relating to old Clause 70—thus giving him three times the amount of publicity he would otherwise have had.
The truth of the matter is not that the great majority of the people of this country are racialists or "racists" as one

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Member would insist in calling them in Committee; they are not. They are, as are all other human communities, disturbed by a large incursion from various other sources coming into the country. They are afraid that the fundamental values of life which they have come to prize will be subverted by this incursion. This does not imply any degree of racialism whatever. It may indeed be very largely irrational. I think it is to a very large extent irrational, but it is something that is far more deeply seated than is racialism. The Greeks had a word for it. It was xenophobia. Once you have recognised it for what it is, the thing to do is to allay the fears that have been aroused and not exacerbate them.
If you introduce legislation the effect of which is to subvert the burden of proof in even one respect, as this particular Amendment does; if you bring in legislation which will give people the impression that you will interfere with the freedom to elect members to clubs, as another part of this legislation does; if you are going to introduce indictable offences that do not contain a guilty mind as an essential ingredient in the prosecution's case, you will not merely not allay but actually confirm the fears that the people who belong to the racial majority of the country feel. In that way, you will make race relations worse, not better. That is what is happening in front of our eyes. That is what I predicted would happen when we introduced the existing legislation in 1968. It happened—in introducing the Second Reading, the then Home Secretary said clearly that race relations had deteriorated. That is what is happening as the result of the introduction of the present Bill.
I would say with great respect to the proponents of the Bill that they are setting about it in the wrong way. They think that, by legislation which is repressive, which undermines well-established British traditions and which is unintelligible in parts and unenforceable in other parts, they will improve the situation. Not at all. We shall find that in four or five years' time those who find that race relations have further deteriorated will say that we must have another Bill with even bigger teeth and so we shall go on with the Rake's Progress in which this Government and the Labour Party in particular (though it is not only the Labour Party, for other people are also involved) have
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been engaged ever since 1965. Race relations will, in consequence, get worse and worse.
Having said that and, I hope, said it fairly plainly, the question remains, what are we to do with the Commons' contemptuous disposal of our Amendments? These were designed to remove some of the evils of this Bill and when one looks at the reasons given for their rejection one sees that they are not reasons at all. One looks at the present reason. We changed the burden of proof in a particular respect back to the traditional view that the burden of proof rests on those who are making the assertion. The Government say that they disagree to that Amendment,
"because the Commons consider it appropriate that the onus of establishing that a requirement or condition which has been shown to be discriminatory is justifiable should rest upon the respondent."
In other words, they say that their reason is, "We are right and you are wrong". That is no way to conduct a rational or civilised argument and the Commons are pursuing their course of thinking that, as an elected dictatorship, they can dictate to the great majority of the people of this country. The mistake that the Government are making is to encourage the Commons in that belief, which leads to the kind of humiliation to which they will continue to be subjected by the population whenever the latter is given a chance to vote.
However, the question remains, what are your Lordships to do? I have given the matter as careful attention as I could after consulting my right honourable and honourable friends and my noble friends in this House. For what it is worth, my view is that I would have divided on almost all the contentious Amendments had this House been an effective control over or court of appeal from the Commons. I have never tried to treat it like that, despite some of the scutterings and squeakings which go on behind the wainscots down the corridor. I have tried to treat it as a revising chamber whose exact composition prevents it from wielding a very high degree of authority. My conclusion is—and I shall have to reiterate it at intervals during the course of the, I hope, relatively short passage of this Commons Message—that we did not

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get enough support in the Commons to justify sending it back again to the Commons for their reconsideration.
That is not to say that we were wrong in our opinion, nor that if we had had a differently constituted Second Chamber we should not have been justified in vetoing it, but it is to say that in the present constitutional situation we believe that we should be both misrepresented and misunderstood if we used the fact that the Government have so mismanaged their business that it comes at the very end of the Session to give them the unpleasant alternative of choosing a quite different Bill (which is what it would be if our Amendments were insisted upon) or abandoning it altogether. For these reasons, we on these Benches do not propose to divide on these Amendments. We simply point to the defects of the Bill and consider that the arguments that have led us to introduce the Amendments have never been answered and are not being answered by the Commons on this particular occasion. However, as I said, we did not get enough support in the Commons to justify sending the Bill back again. I believe that the present Amendment was defeated by 53 votes or something similar, so I propose to leave it at that, with these few—I hope not inappropriate but I fear somewhat opprobrious—words.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I am very disappointed to hear that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, has no intention of dividing the House on any of the Amendments and I hope that he may reconsider this later. I said on Third Reading that all your Lordships, whatever your individual views on the Bill, had supported wholly moderate and reasonable Amendments and that none of them were in any way wrecking Amendments. Despite this, the other place accepted only two Amendments of ours of any substance—or two and a half, depending on the importance which one attaches to the Amendment to Clause 49. Of these two only one is of much practical value, as opposed to philosophical importance. I very much hope that the House may divide —not on all the Amendments because I do not think that there is a case for doing so—on the first Amendment, on Amendment
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No. 14, and on Amendment No. 28, all of which involve individual freedom in a very serious way.
I read very carefully indeed through the Official Report of the Commons proceedings when they were considering your Lordships' Amendments. I tried to see whether there was any validity in the Government's case on Amendment No. 1 and at first I thought that they said one or two things which merited consideration. But in the end one comes back to the totally conclusive remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Foot, speaking from the Liberal Benches. Postulating a case in which the court was faced with an equally balanced argument between a respondent and a claimant, unable to decide which case had the greater merit, he pointed out that the court would have to decide against the respondent unless he could prove his case conclusively, innocent though he might be; in other words, unless there was a definite balance of probability in favour of the respondent. The court might be well aware that the man was likely to be innocent of any discrimination, but because he had not had the intelligence, or had not been able to afford to employ a good enough barrister to prove his case, he might well be found guilty of discrimination, whereas in fact he was not guilty. To my mind that is totally conclusive, and I believe that for that reason alone your Lordships should insist upon the first Amendment.
Viscount HANWORTH: My Lords, this matter raises once again the question of whether we have got the right Parliamentary system. We have not. In my view, and I think in the view of many people, it ought to be possible to have a Second Chamber which has some power. I do not suggest for one moment that we should do anything other than what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, has suggested, but I should like to take this case in point as being just one other where the need to reform our Parliamentary system is emphasised. If we do not do this, I am certain that our democratic system as we know it—whatever "democratic" now means—will not endure.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I should like to respond briefly to the points made, not because the points

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made are unworthy of discussion, but because they have inevitably ranged rather wider than the confines of the Amendment. As the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, will appreciate, although it would no doubt be profitable to discuss the question of the type of Parliamentary system we have, I think it is difficult to do it in relation to Amendment No. 1 This is a matter which has, perfectly properly, occupied a great deal of the time in recent weeks, and I had the pleasure of hearing the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, on this subject during his Dimbleby lecture. He referred in passing in his speech today to the question of an elective dictatorship, which was a point which he discussed with characteristic verve on the occasion I have mentioned. But I am bound to say that on the basis of the events of the last few days, an elected dictatorship is not a form of words which I would apply to the situation now confronting the Government. That is the first point.
The second substantial matter which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, raised comes down to the fundamental question of whether it is a good idea to have anti-discrimination legislation at all; whether it could arguably make the position a good deal worse than it otherwise would be. I accept at once that it is possible to speak with power and conviction on both sides of this argument, but I must say, as I think I said in the winding-up speech on the Second Reading of the Bill, that I do not believe that the situation in this country would be better at the moment in terms of race relations, in terms of community relations, if there had in fact not been race relations legislation on the Statute Book. I think the situation would have been a good deal worse. One has to take only one particular example, to look at the serious problem faced by many coloured school-leavers confronted with the very clear evidence of prejudice which exists—possibly among only a handful of employers, but which nevertheless exists—to see the need to have proper legislation to defend the rights of those coloured teenagers trying to get jobs. Had there not been legislation I believe the situation would have been worse in that respect.
We have only to look at the example of the United States. There has been substantial legislation by Congress in this
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area. Looking at the community relations in the United States today, as compared with the situation 10 or 15 years ago, most of us would come to the conclusion that one of the principal reasons, though not the only one, for that employment was the civil rights legislation passed during the presidency of Mr. Johnson. I have myself, I feared, trespassed rather outside the terms of the first Amendment, but I thought that it was right to do so, given the fact that the noble and learned Lord ranged rather more widely than he should have done—perfectly reasonably—and I will seek to limit my own comments on later Amendments to avoid going over the same ground again.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
3 Page 2, line 16, after "brought" insert "in good faith".
4 Page 2, line 18, after "given" insert "in good faith"
5 Page 2, line 18, after "given" insert "accurate".
6 Page 2, line 21, leave out paragraph (c).
7 Page 2, line 24, after "alleged" insert "in good faith".
8 Page 2, line 26, leave out from "things" to end of line 29.
9 Page 2, line 30, leave out subsection (2).
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
10 Because these Amendments extend the circumstances in which discrimination against persons who have had recourse to rights under the Bill is lawful beyond what the Commons consider justifiable.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 3 to 9 en bloc to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 10. I should like to deal first with Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9. I think it fair to say that there is general agreement with the proposition embodied in Clause 2(1) that where a person has asserted rights under the legislation, or otherwise been involved in its enforcement, he should be protected from less favourable treatment on account of his actions. I think it also fair to say that there is general agreement that it would not be right for the protection to extend to a situation in which the action taken, on account of which the less favourable treatment was given, was false and not made in good faith. The

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issue is whether the burden of proof in relation to the question of accuracy and good faith should fall on the complainant or on the respondent. The questions of fact which are involved in victimisation proceedings are these. First, has the complainant been treated less favourably in a situation within Parts II to IV? Secondly, is the reason for the less favourable treatment the fact that he did one of the things specified in Clause 2(1)(a) to (d)?
In relation to both of these questions, the burden of proof is, quite rightly, on the complainant. But he has a formidable task, for it will often be very difficult for him to prove the connection between the action he took and the less favourable treatment he received. The third question arises only after the complainant has made our a prima facie case on the first two questions, and it arises only where the complainant's action involved an allegation. The question is: Was the allegation false and not made in good faith? The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, contended that it should be for the complainant to show that the answer to this question was in the negative. We believe that it should be for the respondent to show that the answer is in the affirmative. The reason for this is that unless the respondent is satisfied that an allegation against him is false and not made in good faith, he should clearly not treat the complainant less favourably for having made it, and he should be liable if in this situation he does treat him less favourably. In the circumstances, we think it right and proper that the question of the truth and bona fides of an allegation is more appropriately incorporated in the victimisation clause as a defence rather than as a substantive part of the definition.
I come now, if I may, to Amendments Nos. 6 and 8. Both are similar in purpose to the Amendments I have just considered, inasmuch as they are intended to limit the scope of Clause 2. The effect of deleting Clause 2(1)(c), as proposed in Amendment No. 6, would be to deny the protection of the clause to persons who are victimised; for example, because they have given information to the Commission in the course of a formal investigation. We regard this Amendment as an unacceptable limitation on the clause. Amendment No. 8 would have the effect that, whereas
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it would count as victimisation if an employer were to treat an employee less favourably because he knows the employee has, for example, made an allegation against him, it would not count as victimisation if he were to treat the employee less favourably because he merely suspects that he has made an allegation. Again, we regard this as unjustifiable, and for those reasons I submit these Amendments to the House. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 10.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
6.42 p.m.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, the dialogue with the Commons is once again a dialogue with the deaf. All they have said in their Reason numbered 10 is that they are right and we are wrong, without giving any additional reasons for it. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, showed, I thought, the weakness of his position (although I do not complain of the course he took, because it was directly in response to the course I took) by citing the position as regards employment, which can have, I think, very little relation to the burden of proof. He said that the position has been improved by race relations legislation in the field of employment. I prefaced my remarks by saying that I have never denied that there was a limited function which legislation can perform in this field, and on a previous occasion, though not on this one, I cited employment and tenancy as two examples where this might very well be the case: and if anyone is interested to research into the very boring discussions which we had in the Commons in 1968, he will see that I said so then at much greater length than I am saying so now.
Here we have another situation where the well-tried principle of the burden of proof is turned round, and turned round, as I submit, for no good reason at all. The noble Lord said—and I am quoting him—that it is clearly for the respondent to establish the falsity of the information or the bad faith of the informer. I do not think it is clear at all. Whenever I hear the word "clearly" or the word "obviously" in a political argument, I know that somebody is skating round a difficulty, and I immediately draw out my

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intellectual six-shooter. However, I do not want to do the noble Lord any harm, and so I will not underline it more than by saying this.
An employer—suppose he is a farmer, or suppose he is a landlord—is not bound to take any other kind of tenant who has informed against him or who he believes to have informed against him to the police or to the law enforcement agency. Your Lordships may think that it is right or your Lordships may think it is wrong. Personally, I think it is right, because I think that this country remains basically a free country, and all kinds of morally wrong and unreasonable behaviour are lawful in a free country. Indeed, it is arguable that the only freedom which it is worth having is the freedom to do that to which other people object. If they do not object to it, there is no reason to demand the freedom. In every other case discrimination is to be allowed, but not in the case of race relations. Now it can be seen why it is that the white majority in this country find that, by legislation of this kind, their fears for their future, their fears for their set of values, are not being allayed by proposals of this kind but are actually being exasperated and corroborated by legislation of this kind; because they see that, whereas in every other case they are free to discriminate against persons who they think have done them a wrong, in this case they are not, and in this case they have to prove their innocence or else they are assumed to be guilty. However, the same reasons which I gave on my first intervention seem to me to apply in this case, too, so I have nothing more again to say except that this will make race relations worse.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
11 Clause 11, page 8, after "applies" insert "or any person concerned with the affairs of such an organisation,"
12 Clause 11, page 8, line 9, after "applies" insert "or any person concerned with the affairs of such an organisation,"
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason,"
13 Because the Commons do not consider it appropriate that Clause 11 should cover persons who are not acting as agents with the authority of the organisations to which the Clause applies.
Baroness SEEAR: My Lords, I beg to move, that this House doth insist on their Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 to which the
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Commons have disagreed. I have of course looked very carefully at the arguments put forward in another place by the Minister who led in discussing this Amendment. He made a number of points as to why these Amendments of the Lords should be rejected. In the first place, he said that these Amendments were unnecessary. The whole purpose of these two Amendments—because we are taking the two Amendments together—is to put personal responsibility on individuals concerned with organisations, and not merely on the organisations themselves. This is the gravamen of the Amendments. Of course, the persons referred to in this particular clause are the shop stewards in a trade union organisation.
So far from being unnecessary, I would argue that the shop steward is in fact the key figure in race relations at factory floor level. He is able to make or to break so far as good relations on the factory floor are concerned—and, of course, in matters of employment within a place of work it is the factory floor which really matters. I know, and many of your Lordships know, that there are many shop stewards up and down the country who are 100 per cent. on the side of good relations and who are doing all they possibly can to see that the spirit of the legislation, as well as the letter, is implemented. But, of course, among shop stewards, as among all other human beings, there are some who have contrary views; and this is well known inside industry and inside the trade union movement itself. It is because the shop steward is so important, it is because his power and his influence is so great, that it is far from unnecessary that these Amendments that your Lordships put in should be retained.
In another place it was also said by the Minister that, if a member of a racial minority felt that he was being unfairly treated by the person in the organisation, the thing to do was to take his case to the trade union, because the trade union, of course, will have legal responsibility under this legislation. As an argument in the Palace of Westminster this may sound very convincing, but let us look at the reality of what is likely to happen. Suppose an individual Pakistani or Wes Indian, or some person not very conversant with the English language, has a strong

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suspicion that he is not being adequately treated, and that that is so for racial reasons, by the shop steward. Is it really likely that in most cases that individual, by definition not supported by his shop steward, will make his way to the trade union, to the branch, to the district organiser, and will channel his own case all by himself and take it up with the trade union? What could be more unreal? Yet that is the argument which is used. We are urging that responsibility should not be put on the person in the place of work, the person who is there in front of the individual concerned, who is the person who in his eyes is in fact the trade union—because that is what the shop steward is to the great mass of ordinary people on the shop floor—to proceed on his own to get the trade union to act for him. It is quite unnecessary, because you can rely on the trade union doing it. It was said in another place, absolutely rightly, that the trade union movement as a whole is entirely in favour of good race relations and entirely opposed to discrimination. I believe that. I believe Mr. Len Murray and those who work with him when they say that they will do all in their power to see that on the factory floor race relations are handled on a basis of complete equity. But we know from experience in many other fields that in fact it is extremely difficult for the trade union movement to reach down to the factory floor—that was the whole burden of the Donovan Report—to see that the policies put forward on the factory floor and supported in all sincerity at higher levels are in fact implemented. In many cases they will be, but in the minority of cases they will not be. It is in those minority of cases where it is so very important to pin the responsibility on the person who is actually inside the factory.
Among the reasons put forward in another place, it was said that if responsibility was put on to the shop steward—and here I quote from the Minister in another place, which I believe is permissible:
"the shop steward might be subjected to close and extensive examination of his actions and motives."
But that is precisely what everybody else is to be exposed to as a result of this legislation, and quite rightly. If we are going to have the Race Relations Act and to use
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this means—and I support it with modifications—then it is inevitable that all persons in a position to be responsible for race relations legislation will be exposed before an industrial tribunal to:
"… a close and extensive examination of his actions and motives."
If everybody else, if the publican in the pub, if the person letting lodgings and if the supervisor, why not the shop steward?
It is not even that there is no good justification in ethics for making this exemption. It does not even make sense, because no one is going to be able to shield him from that examination of his actions and motives. If the case is taken up by the trade union organisation—and this is what has been recommended—and if the trade union is taken to the industrial tribunal, then the actions and motives of the shop steward will have to be examined. It will be the only way in which the industrial tribunal can reach a conclusion as to whether or not justice has been done inside the plant. Ultimately, if an appeal is made to a court of law, the same thing must inevitably happen.
As no doubt everybody in your Lord ships' House will know, this clause existed in the 1968 Act and, in theory (though not in practice for many reasons) it was said during the discussion in another place that it made such a great difference that the case would go to a conciliation committee. But then it was perfectly possible that from such a committee it would go to a court of law and so examination of motives and actions would have taken place in that court of law in exactly the same way; so there is absolutely nothing new about this. It is further said—and here again I quote from the speech in another place:
"If it so happened that a shop steward was determined to disregard the tribunal decision, there could be serious industrial relations problems stemming from that action."
What are we doing? We are passing legislation, apparently, which, because it may be difficult, inconvenient and embarrassing to implement, we then proceed, in the very moment of passing the legislation, to make special exemptions. What sort of legislation is it which you have to pass and then say that because it is inconvenient you are going to exempt certain categories of people from the operation of the legislation. The principle being undermined here is one of a very

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high order—of the same order, indeed, as that which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, was defending in another context.
These two Amendments in the Bill have been pressed very strongly by persons outside your Lordships' House and they have great experience in race relations. It is well known that no less a person than Sir Geoffrey Wilson of the Race Relations Board was extremely anxious to see this clause—which, I repeat, was in the 1968 Act—carried forward into this legislation. Inside the trade union movement, I know, there are supporters for having this clause incorporated. I therefore beg to move that this Amendment from the Commons be rejected and that we insist upon our original Amendments.
Moved, That this House doth insist on Amendments Nos. 11 and 12 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 13.—(Baroness Seear.)
Lord MONSON: My Lords, if I do not follow the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, into the Division Lobby on this matter I assure her that it is not by reason of any sour grapes because of the fact that the Liberals, with one exception, did not support the Amendment I moved on Report, but because I genuinely and sincerely cannot make up my mind as to the merits of her Amendment. I think the arguments for and against are very finely balanced; but I am certain that the noble Baroness has every constitutional right to divide the House on this if she so wishes. I believe that the majority in another place against this Amendment was only 26, which was very much less than the majority against the preceding Amendments we have been talking about.
Having said that, I would ask the Liberal Benches to consider one thing. Would it not be slightly tactless if the only Amendment insisted upon by your Lordships tonight was seen to be one which imposed obligations upon shop stewards? If the Liberals succeed in carrying this Amendment, might I urge them to support also one liberalising Amendment—preferably No. 28—which, as your Lordships will know, was supported by over 71 per cent. of Liberals in another place on 27th October.
Lord HACKING: My Lords, like many noble Lords in this House, I have
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been enormously impressed by the argument put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, at the beginning of the consideration of these Amendments. I recognise that there is a grave danger that this House could be misrepresented and misunderstood, but I would submit to your Lordships that it is even more important for each individual Member of this House to do what he believes to be right. For that reason, I shall be supporting the noble Baroness.
Lord JACQUES: My Lords, I rise to oppose this Motion. The Amendments are worded similarly, but the reasons for opposing them are quite different. As the noble Baroness foresaw, we regard the first Amendment as unnecessary. The only people who can discriminate in regard to membership of a trade union are those who have the authority to receive applications and to decide whether or not the person who applies can or cannot be a member. If the shop steward has that authority, both he and the trade union are liable if there is discrimination. But if the shop steward does not have that authority, then he cannot discriminate. He cannot discriminate over something for which he has no authority. Those are the reasons why we regard the first Amendment as unnecessary.
I come now to the second and more important Amendment. We oppose this because we believe that, on balance, it would do more harm than good. This Bill is different from the 1968 Act, which allowed only the Race Relations Board to make the investigations and to pursue proceedings. But this Bill is quite different, and allows the individual worker to take action against another worker. Consequently, we believe that this Amendment could do more harm than good. It could result in the position where worker is versus worker before the industrial tribunal. That would not do good to race relations or to industrial relations in a factory.
The trade union movement is going along with the spirit of this Bill. The noble Baroness will be aware of the recent campaign to which the TUC was a party. It has set up special committees—the Equal Rights Committee and the Race Relations Advisory Committee—and the Government have asked it what further steps they might take to eliminate all forms

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of discrimination on the workers' side of industry, and the Council of the TUC is at present considering that. We appreciate the intentions of the noble Baroness, but we are convinced from past experience that this would do more harm than good to race relations and industrial relations, and I ask her not to run the risk of losing this Bill for the sake of these Amendments.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I must say that that is a very odd argument. I have been arguing from the start that the provisions of this Bill will do more harm than good to race relations, and I am bound to say I have argued in certain contexts that it will do more harm than good to industrial relations, too. The funny thing is that, according to the Government, it never happens to he true unless you try to touch a shop steward. Then it becomes apparent that what I have been saying all along is true, but only in relation to the trade unions and the shop stewards, because they can be trusted never to do anything wrong. If we believe that, we can believe anything.
But I would make one or two comments of my own, which are rather different from those of the noble Lord, Lord Jacques. Incidentally, I rather hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, was not suggesting that any Member of this House, whether on this side or the other, is not doing what, individually, he believes to be right in this context. Obviously, every Peer acts according to his own conscience even when he is whipped, unlike Members of another place who sometimes, as we have now learned, act contrary to their conscience when they are being whipped, except when one or two of them actually take the bit between their teeth.
However, there are other arguments which can be presented. To begin with, I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that if I was going to fight on one issue in this Bill, I would fight on the old
Clause 70, and not on this one, for the reason that he gave and also because Clause 70 is a much worse provision than the provision which the noble Baroness wants to cure by her insistence on this Amendment. The second point is that I am not quite sure, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, said, that the Amendment affects a very important purpose. I have been looking at it quite a lot since I supported it—and I think rightly supported it—the first time around. If you look at Part IV of the Bill, I think you are bound to come to the concluson that if a shop steward, whether with or without the authority of a trade union behind him, instructs anybody—and I suppose that that includes a union, as well as an employer or a fellow worker—to do any act which is unlawful by virtue of Parts II or III, or induces or attempts to induce anybody to do an act which is unlawful by virtue of Parts II or III, or acts as an agent for another person with authority, express or implied, to do an act which is unlawful by this Bill, then he is liable himself.
I am not at all clear whether there is, in fact, an area of country where the noble Baroness, in either part of her Amendment, either that which the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, says is unnecessary, or that which he says is deleterious, will make a great deal of difference. At the end of the day I am not, for technical reasons, particularly keen on fighting this one. If I was going to fight any, I would fight Clause 70, which I think is fundamental, and if I were going to fight according to what would be my conscience if there were not constitutional difficulties, I would fight every one. But I cannot see myself selecting this one as the battle which I would choose to wage, and I think we should be misunderstood if we did.
7.7 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Motion shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 14; Not-Contents, 50.

CONTENTS

Banks, L.

Byers, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Barrington, V.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Seear, B. [Teller.]

Beaumont of Whitley, L.[Teller.]

Gladwyn, L.

Swaythling, L.

Grey, E.

Wade, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Hacking, L.

Wigoder, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Bernstein, L.

Henderson, L.

Oram, L.

Birk, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Pannell, L.

Blyton, L.

Jacques, L.

Parry, L.

Brimelow, L.

Janner, L.

Peart, L. (L. Privy Seal)

Brockway, L.

Kaldor, L.

Peddie, L.

Champion, L.

Lee of Newton, L.

Phillips, B.

Collison, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.[Teller.]

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Darwen, L.

Popplewell, L.

Davies of Leek, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Rhodes, L.

Davies of Penrhys, L.

Longford, E.

Slater, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Stedman, B.

Gordon-Walker, L.

McCarthy, L.

Stewart of Alvechurch, B.

Goronwy-Roberts, L.

McCluskey, L.

Stone, L.

Hale, L.

Maelor, L.

Strabolgi, L. [Teller.]

Hanworth, V.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Taylor of Mansfield, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Morris, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Hayter, L.

Northfield, L.

Winterbottom, L.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

7.15 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT
14 Clause 23, page 16, line 20, at end insert—
"(3) Section 20(1) does not apply to the provision of facilities or services by a person in his home, not being a place open (for payment or not) to members of the public generally."
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
15 Because the Commons do not consider that the fact that facilities or services are provided from a person's home justifies permitting discrimination when they are made available to the public or a section of the public.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 14, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 15. The Commons do not consider that the fact that facilities or services are provided from a person's home justifies permitting discrimination when they are made available to the public or a section of the public.
This is the third occasion on which we have considered this, and recently I have written at some length to the noble Lord, Lord Monson, trying to set out in detail the Government's point of view. The Amendment says, broadly speaking, that a person who provides in his home facilities and services should not be within the scope of Clause 20. I think nobody will disagree that the Bill should not interfere in essentially private and personal relationships and this, of course, is why the Amendment is, at any rate at first glance, attractive. It carries the suggestion that, unless it is made, the Bill will blunder into
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private and personal relationships in the home. However, this is not the case, as I shall try to explain.
The issue is basically this. Should a person who provides facilities or services in his home be excepted from Clause 20? Leaving aside for the moment the limitations which have been built into the exception, the answer of the noble Lord, Lord Monson, is in the affirmative. The Government's answer is also in the affirmative, but only where the transactions involved are in fact of an essentially private character. The Amendment is not necessary to secure an exception for these transactions because the result is achieved by the limitation of the clause to persons concerned with the provision of goods, facilities or services "to the public or a section of the public".
I am fully aware that on three previous occasions I failed to persuade your Lord ships that the Amendment was not acceptable and the noble Lord, Lord Monson, was certainly disinclined to accept the argument that this limitation in Section 2 of the 1968 Act had worked satisfactorily for the last eight years. I am sure that if the noble Lord is familiar with that Act he will know that these words have been lifted almost entirely from it. The Government's view is that it has worked very well indeed during that period. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 15.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, I have had the privilege now of sitting for 23 years in your Lordships' House and this evening

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is the first time that I have ever heard the House insist upon one of its Amendments which has been questioned by the other place. I had an idea that there must be an unwritten Standing Order that we should never do so but I am very glad to have heard the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, break that impression this evening. I feel that this Amendment No. 14 is even more important. I should like to read to your Lordships some words which were spoken in the other place by the right honourable gentleman Mr. Patrick Mayhew when they were discussing this Amendment on 27th October. He said—and I quote—
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but I think he is out of order in quoting from the speech of a Member of the other place who is not a Minister.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, if it is out of order, of course, I shall not do so.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, I think it is in order for the noble Lord to paraphrase it, is it not?
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I think if the noble Lord on the Cross-Benches takes out the inverted commas and does not quote ipsissima verba he will be in order.
Lord SOMERS: My Lords, I will so as well as I can in that way. The right honourable gentlemen was implying that we would be losing all sense of reality if we felt there was some uncertainty as to whether one had the right to say who should or who should not enter one's own home, and I entirely agree with him. If we lose this privilege of saying who shall or who shall not enter our homes then it seems to me that the last vestige of freedom will have gone. Therefore I sincerely hope that the House will insist upon this Amendment.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I am glad to tell my noble friend Lord Somers that I intend to try to persuade the House to insist upon this Amendment, for six reasons. First, there is the question of the sanctity of the home. I take the view that a person's home is essentially sacrosanct. The noble Lord, Lord Wells-
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Pestell at the Report stage, in the letter which he so kindly wrote to me later, and again this evening took a partially contrary view, if I am not being unfair. If I may try to summarise the gist of what the Government were getting at, it was that the home was normally a private place but once you started providing facilities or services to people, however infrequently or for however short a time, it became temporarily a public place. I think that fairly sums up the attitude of the Government. I quite accept that the Government hold these views just as sincerely as I hold my views, but I am fortified by the belief that were there to be a referendum on this point at least 95 per cent. of the population would support my interpretation of the sanctity of the home.
The second reason is that the Commons Reason is actually inaccurate because the Commons Reason numbered 15 is given as follows:
"Because the Commons do not consider that the fact that facilities or services are provided from a person's home justifies permitting discrimination…".
I said nothing about permitting discrimination from a person's home. I am not talking about self-employed plumbers or electricians who receive a telephone call and go out in their van or pickup truck to repair somebody's plumbing or fuses. I am talking about facilities provided in a private part of a person's home. The third reason is that both in the letter written by the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, and in another place as the issue of doctors and dentists was brought into the Government's reasoning, I believe that a doctor's surgery and a dentist's waiting room are in fact public places and not private: also, I know it was pointed out in another place that a doctor had the right to decide who should or should not be on his list. If I may say so, I think this is a little bit of a red herring. Solicitors were also mentioned; I suppose there may be a solicitor who occasionally operates from his home but it must be a very rare thing indeed.
Far more important is the misunderstanding of human nature which comes very surprisingly, if I may say so, from the Labour Party; because on 27th October the Minister of State—and I take it I am allowed to quote him—at column 564 of the Official Report said:

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"If a piano teacher or anyone else advertises lessons to a wide section of the public it is repugnant for a little coloured girl who goes along for her first piano lesson to be told, 'I am having 25 or 30 other pupils and you are coloured and cannot come in'."
Really, if one thinks of all the people in this country who are unlikely to use such offensive language, surely music teachers of all people are the least likely to speak in that way. I am sure my noble friend Lord Somers would confirm that.
None of us wants people to talk in that way; but there is inconsistency in the Government's attitude, because it is specifically provided in this Bill that a man wanting to employ a cook is perfectly entitled, in the Bill as it left the Commons, to say, "I am not going to employ you; I do not want a Pakistani cook"—or a Venezuelan cook or a Bulgarian cook, or whatever it may be. The secretary of a club of 24 people is perfectly entitled to say, "I am not having Asians or black people in this club". One of the partners in a partnership of under six people is perfectly entitled to use such offensive language, if he feels inclined to do so. Then there is the landlord or the landlady of a small boarding house who can say, "No blacks". I think very few people use that sort of language, but if anybody does I am sure it is far more likely to be the landlady or the landlord of a boarding house than the unfortunate music teacher. I am sure that argument is not in accord with reality.
The final reason is that this Amendment was not considered, as were other Amendments, by another place for any length of time; and for that reason I suggest it ought to be returned to them in order that they may have another look at it and give it further consideration. If they reject it a second time, all well and good. It did not go to the Standing Committee, although there were 13 sittings of the Standing Committee; it did not go through the Report or Third Reading stage in another place because it originated in this House as recently as the 12th October and although it was not supported by the Opposition Front Bench in this House it received support from all quarters—from the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby from the Labour Benches and from the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, from the Liberal Benches as well as from the Cross-Benches and from the Conservatives.
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Now that the other place has had an opportunity of considering it, it is a fact that an honourable and learned Member on the Conservative Front Bench in another place thought that it was a worthwhile and sensible Amendment and consistent with the scheme of the Bill as drafted and with a pattern of exemptions from liability which it already contained. The Conservatives went on to say that they were happy to support it and, if truth be told, rather wished that they had drafted it themselves. Every Conservative present, including Mr. William White-law and other distinguished Conservatives, supported it in another place and I hope your Lordships will agree that it ought to return to the Commons for further consideration.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I do not think we shall be able to take this much further tonight. As I said earlier, we have been over the ground three times. In a lengthy letter I have tried to explain the Government's point of view. The only thing I can say is that one must have in the forefront of one's mind whether the transactions are of an essentially public character. As I understand the Amendment of the noble Lord, if this were to go through, then it would mean that a good many services which are essentially of a public character would become impossible. The noble Lord has quite rightly mentioned that we have talked about solicitors, doctors and dentists, many of whom operate from their homes, from the places where they live. I suppose most dentists do, for that matter, and also a large number of doctors. We are concerned as to whether the person is publicly providing facilities and services. We recognise that within the privacy of the home, certain things come outside this.
Let us take the situation of a man who is retired; I have in mind a man who perhaps has been a tailor. He has retired and does not want to engage in work, but obviously he is prepared to help out his friends when they need help with repairs, alterations, perhaps even to the extent of making a suit. But he is operating simply for his next door neighbours and friends. In my view, and in the view of the Government, this is not supplying services and facilities for the public. We are saying that immediately that man is prepared to offer these facilities over a much wider field to the public at

1083
large, then he comes within the scope of Clause 20.
I do not think I can add more to it than that. The noble Lord has to see that there is a clear dividing line between the privacy of the home, the private side of the matter, and the public side. If the Amendment of the noble Lord is carried, it would completely eliminate a large number of services to which I have referred which, of course, would be disastrous.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I must say again that I am completely unconvinced by all this. I think that the noble Lord who has just spoken has greatly exaggerated the number of cases to which this could possibly refer, both as regards the dental and the medical professions. It is just another example of how race relations will he damaged by this Bill.
In my time, I have known lots of old ladies, having been the representative for various constituencies. Some old ladies are convinced that all Irishmen are wicked, lascivious and drunken—and I daresay the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, has confirmatory evidence of that from his previous experience as a Minister. Others think that all Indians have unpleasant characteristics. I daresay that if an old Hebrew lady offered me lessons in Hebrew, when she discovered what an un-Kosher name I once had, she would not have me in the house—which only goes to show what rubbish this Bill really is. I fancy that there is only a minute number of cases where this kind of situation can exist, and although I think it is another example of the nonsense that the Government are making of race relations by this idiotic legislation, this is not one to fight on.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should like to say three things in response to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, because he is always very reasonable about these things. I do not agree that a dentist's waiting room or a doctor's surgery is a private place. It is not what I was getting at: the proviso covers this. I do not think the other place has had a chance to really study it. They spent only about 45 minutes on it in another place. The fact that they have not comprehended it—
Several noble Lords: Order! Order!

LORDS AMENDMENT
16 Leave out Clause 25.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment and proposed the following Amendments to the words so restored to the Bill:
17 Page 17, line 39, leave out from "section" to "he" in line 42, and insert—

'(a) a person is a member of an association if he belongs to it by virtue of his admission to any sort of membership provided for by its constitution (and is not merely a person with certain rights under its constitution by virtue of his membership of some other association), and references to membership of an association shall be construed accordingly;

(b) a person is an associate of an association to which this section applies if not being a member of it,'.

Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 16 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 17.
With the leave of the House I will discuss Amendment No. 18 with Reason numbered 19, Amendment No. 20 with Reason numbered 21, and Amendments Nos. 33, 34 and 35 with Reason numbered 36. We come again to the club clauses of the Bill. I am not sure that there are any new arguments on either side of the issue, and therefore I do not propose to rehearse in any detail arguments which have been advanced in earlier debates on the Bill in another place, in this House, and then again in another place.
Briefly, the purpose of Clause 25 is to change the criterion on which the question of whether or not a club or association is within the scope of legislation is deter mined. As it stands, following the decision of your Lordships' House sitting in a judicial capacity, the test is whether there is a genuine selection procedure. The Government reached the conclusion that, for reasons we set out in the White Paper, this test was unacceptable as a matter of policy. Our problem then was to devise a more acceptable one. The solution embodied in Clause 25 is that the legislation should apply to all clubs except those with fewer than 25 members.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 17.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: Lords, the only effect of the attitude of the Government, of course, will be that this clause will apply to working men's clubs where it will be greatly resented, and not to Pall Mall clubs where it will be quite unenforceable. If they like to introduce this discriminatory class of legislation, we should not press the matter any further.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, it is a great shame that the Commons rejected your Lordships' Amendment. Their insistence on the retention of Clause 25 is a blow for the concept of freedom of association because, of course, freedom to associate necessarily implies freedom not to associate. I agree, however, that it is perhaps not an Amendment on which we ought to fight.
7.38 p.m.

LORDS AMENDMENT
18 Leave out Clause 26.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
19 Because the Commons consider that, while it should be unlawful for associations of 25 or more members to discriminate, there should be an exception for associations whose main object is to confer the benefits of membership on persons of a particular racial group defined otherwise than by reference to colour.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 18 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 19.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 19.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, the only thing I wish to say is that this is the only Reason of the Commons with which I agree. It is consequential on the last.

LORDS AMENDMENT
20 Page 19, line 29, leave out "26,"
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
21 Because the Amendment is consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords to
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leave out Clause 26, to which the commons have disagreed.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 20 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 21.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 21.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)

LORDS AMENDMENT
22 Page 26, line 7, leave out "Commission for Racial Equality" and insert "Community Relations Commission".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
23 Because the Commons do not consider that the name Community Relations Commission appropriately reflects the responsibilities which the Commission established under Clause 43 will have.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 22 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 23. With the leave of your Lordships, I will speak to Amendment No. 24 and Reason numbered 25, Amendment No. 37 and Reason numbered 38, Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 and Reason numbered 41; Commons Amendments Nos. 43, 44 and 45 to Lords Amendment No. 42; Amendments Nos. 46 and 47 and Reason numbered 48, and Amendments Nos. 49 to 55 inclusive and Reason numbered 56.
These are all consequential Amendments. As your Lordships know, the name of the new Commission has been the subject of a good deal of debate in both Houses and I do not want to rehearse all the arguments that have taken place. However, I would draw your Lordships' attention to two points which have not emerged clearly in our debates. First, the title, "Commission for Racial Equality" was a compromise accepted on all sides in another place. The original title proposed by the Government was Race Relations Commission. It was objected to partly because of the word "race" and partly because it failed to emphasise the positive role of the new Commission. On the use of "Race" the Government have stood firm. However, we came forward with Commission

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for Racial Equality to meet the criticisms that Race Relations Commission was too negative.
The second point—and it is one to which importance was attached in another place—is that the new name is needed for a new body whose fuctions will encompass and go wider than those of the present Race Relations Board and the Community Relations Committee. In our view, it would he a mistake to give the new body the name of one of its predecessors. We would risk confusing the public about the role of the new body, and for the reason that the existing Community Relations Commission functions are so much narrower than those of the new body, we would risk underplaying the contribution which we all hope and expect that the new Commission will make.
I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Vickers—who I know from the discussions we have had feels very strongly about this—will accept that there is some force in the argument. I wrote to the noble Baroness a short time ago setting out the reasons why these Amendments could not be accepted. I hope she will understand the situation, and I trust your Lordships will also understand the position and not insist on these Amendments. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 23.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)
Baroness VICKERS: My Lords, may I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for the kind letter he wrote to me. However, I feel that I have been deceived on two occasions. The first time we got the name of the Bill changed on the nod. The Bill was reprinted and then, of course, changed in this House. I got the other Amendment on the Commission through by eight votes, and it was changed in the other House. I do not think that the Reason given by the House of Commons is very sensible. Clause 43(a) reads, "to work towards the elimination of discrimination." We already have the Sex Discrimination Act, the Equal Opportunities and Employment Protection Act which, surely should eliminate discrimination. In regard to
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the "equal opportunity", I should have thought that would be taken into consideration in those Bills too.
In regard to the final words, "and good relations between persons in different racial groups", one cannot make good relations satisfactory by law. Good relations are achieving a good understanding of people, and I suggest start in the schools, in movements like the Boy Scouts, in activities undertaken in the community and in various organisations like the British Council, the Commonwealth Countries League, the Women's Corona Society and others working towards getting the community to mix together. Therefore, I do not accept—though I presume I cannot do anything about it tonight—what the House of Commons has said; that is, that this will establish better relations.
As to the words, "racial equality", when I think of the years it took women to achieve equality—they did not even get a vote until 1919—how are you going to get equality by legislation of this kind? I think it is very damaging indeed. I do not like the word "racial". We want to be considered one community, particularly in view of the fact that a large percentage of the people who are of different race from ourselves have been born and brought up in this country. We want them to be citizens of this country and to get away from the word "race". I think it is very detrimental to name a body "Commission for Racial Equality".
I do not know whether the noble Lord can give me an answer tonight, but I should like to ask whether the Commission has managed to get its full number of persons to serve. As I understood it, there has been a great deal of, shall we say, racial difficulty in getting members of the Commission together. That is one of the reasons why I dislike this term. If we cannot have "community relations", I should have been happier if we had left out the word "race" and left "Commission for Equality". I feel it is very unfortunate to have the Bill going forward with the title, "Race Relations Bill". It is not going to help in the future. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, said that since the Bill has been printed, and since we have had discussions, race relations have certainly not improved, and I know from the number of letters I have

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received that many people are very sad that we are again going to incorporate into legislation the word "race".
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I cannot give the noble Baroness any information with regard to the Commission. It is rather outside the purpose of our being here tonight. I would call her attention to the fact that this Amendment was passed without a Division in another place.

LORDS AMENDMENT
24 Page 26, line 30, after "Commission" insert "established by section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1968".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
25 Because the Amendment is consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords in page 26, line 7, to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on its Amendment No. 24, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 25.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on the said Amendment to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reasonnumbered25.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)

LORDS AMENDMENT
26 Leave out Clause 65.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
27 Because the Commons consider that it is appropriate to make special provisions to enable persons who suspect that they have been discriminated against to obtain relevant information.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on its Amendment No. 26 to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 27. When we debated this question in Committee, I explained in some detail the considerations which had led us in the Sex Discrimination Act, but more particularly in relation to this Bill, to put forward the "questions procedure". I certainly do not propose to go over that ground again. I shall confine myself to replying to the main criticisms which have been levelled at this clause.
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The main criticism to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham directed attention is that the kind of innovation which the "questions procedure" embodies should apply either to all litigation or to none at all. The Government do not agree that this "all or nothing" argument is valid. I was about to say that in my view there was a clear justification for the provision before remembering that the noble and learned Lord had expressed himself as having strong feelings about the use of the words "clear" or "obvious". I think he said that he would pull out his six-shooter if the words were used again, so I shall certainly not use either. I shall therefore use the more neutral term and say that I think there is a justification for our position.
The principal factors are these. First, the complexity of the concept of discrimination; I do not think that anybody who has heard our debates would disagree with that. Secondly, the difficulty of knowing and of proving that character of discrimination. And, thirdly, the fact that we are in this Bill transferring the responsibility of enforcement by legal powers from a statutory agency to the individual victim. I think it is right to mention a fourth consideration, and this is that we are doing away with the statutory conciliation procedure which is incorporated in the 1968 Act, because we are restructuring and improving the enforcement provisions of the legislation, but there is an important place for conciliation. The industrial tribunal system incorporates conciliation machinery, and there are usually informal attempts at conciliation and settlement before ordinary county court litigation commences. We believe that the questions procedure will go some way towards filling the gap which will inevitably be left when the statutory conciliation machinery of the 1968 Act ends, for it will afford an opportunity to both parties to identify and reflect upon the issues between them, and we think that this will be valuable. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 26, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 27.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I do not want to say very much about this. It is, I think,

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an abominable but relatively unimportant procedure upon which the Government insists. It is just another example of the way in which race relations will be damaged as a result of this foolish piece of legislation. In every other kind of wrongdoing, in the criminal courts and in the civil courts, you cannot do this kind of thing to your opponent; you cannot interrogate him; you cannot draw inferences from his silence. But this time you can do it. It is aimed at the majority of the inhabitants of this island to assist minorities, but in fact it will operate in reverse, as the Government found under their Race Relations Act 1965. The only valid prosecutions that were ever taken were taken against black men for abusing whites, and this is the way it will work this time in relation to this interrogation procedure. I will not take up the time of the House. This is another example of the folly of this type of legislation.

LORDS AMENDMENT
28 Clause 70, page 45, line 13, leave out from beginning to "be" in line 14 and insert "with the intention that hatred shall".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
29 Because the Commons do not consider that it is appropriate to limit the offence of inciting racial hatred only to cases where the person concerned is proved to have intended to stir up hatred.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 28, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 29. Once again I do not think there is any need for me to repeat the reasons why, in this particular case as well, the Government came to the conclusion that they did. We came to the conclusion that it was right that the element of intention to stir up racial hatred should be removed from the offence of incitement to racial hatred. Instead, I should like to deal with one or two of the arguments to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, directed himself on the last occasion. Of course, like him, I recognise that this is an important matter and it deserves serious consideration by the House. The main objection raised by the noble and learned Lord was that it conflicted with,
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"…a fundamental principle of the English criminal law that a crime should consist of two elements, the actus reas and the mens rea".
The noble and learned Lord made clear that he was not concerned with summary offences, but only with indictable ones like Section 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965, and Clause 70 of the Bill, which would replace Section 6. He went on to say that he could see no reason why the fundamental principle to which he had referred should not apply in the case of incitement to racial hatred. In reply to this argument I should like to make two points. First, it is not, I think, as though the fundamental principle to which the noble and learned Lord referred is without exception. Indeed, Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 is just such an exception. It makes it an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting language which is likely to cause a breach of the peace, irrespective of any intention on the part of the person concerned to cause a breach of the peace. And, second, the link between Section 5 of the 1936 Act and incitement to racial hatred is not simply that the absence of an element of intention in the former is a precedent for the proposal in Clause 70: there is a clear parallel between the evil against which Section 5 is directed—namely, public disorder—and the evil of racial hatred, which contains not far below the surface the seeds of public disorder. In fact, this was among the considerations which led us, on a suggestion made by members of the Opposition in another place, to transfer the offence of incitement to racial hatred from the Bill to the Public Order Act. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 28, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 29.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, if there were an an Amendment which I should like to fight about at this stage of the exchange between the two Houses it would be this particular Amendment. I see no reason why I should withdraw what I said on an earlier occasion, that to create an indictable offence in which the mental element is wholly lacking is a constitutional outrage and an undermining of our principles of the criminal law. To make it one on which

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the guilty person could be liable to a penalty of two years' imprisonment is, to my mind, little short of abominable, and far worse than anything else in the Bill. It has also the merit, or demerit, of being totally inappropriate to the rest of the Bill. This Bill is concerned in other sections solely with relations in a civil sense, except for offences which are created ancillary to those relations, but this has to do with the Public Order Act 1936, and constitutes, therefore, an excrescence on the rest of the Bill. To my mind, therefore the Government could perfectly well have omitted it from this legislation altogether, and all the more so because at Committee in another place the Government spokesmen declared that they have in contemplation a revision of the Public Order Act 1936. We could perfectly well have then discussed this particular question at our leisure, instead of trying to rush it through at the end of a Session when we are faced with the alternative of making the Government drop their Bill or accept what they do not want to accept. That again is a constitutional outrage.
Thirdly, I think that the Government have not fully realised the mess into which this new offence will bring them, or any other Government who may inherit their foolish legislation. Let us imagine that a certain Mr. Enoch Powell makes a speech about race relations in the country. Well, he has a friend called Mr. Patel, who gives him unmerited advertisement by advertising the speech before he makes it. He makes it, and it attracts headlines in all the local and national newspapers. Afterwards, Mr. Patel demands that he be prosecuted under this new draconian provision. Of course, under the existing legislation the Attorney-General is under no difficulty; he can say, "We cannot prove intent". That would quash such a foolish suggestion. Under this new legislation, it is the effect that counts, not the intent. We have all seen the effect last week on "Any Questions". So, Mr. Patel may say, "Let Mr. Powell be prosecuted". I know that the Attorney-General has to consent to a prosecution before it takes place, but think of the embarrassment that poor Mr. Silkin will be in when this happens should this Bill become law. If he says, "I will not prosecute", when there is a viable case against Mr. Powell, then of course there will be a tremendous howl of indignation from the Patels of this world,
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because he will be giving preference to Privy Councillors and Members of Parliament rather than other, ordinary members of the public. It will be said that it is just another example of Front Benchers scratching one another's backs. So Mr. Silkin will be in for a very rough ride if he refuses to prosecute, because the case will be unanswerable.
Let us assume that he does his strict duty according to Roman principles of impartiality and sternness at breaches of law, and prosecutes Mr. Powell. Mr. Powell goes to the Old Bailey; cheering crowds, led on by the National Front, greet him on the way; flower petals are thrown to show enthusiasm for his speech. He becomes a martyr, a national hero; and of course nobody will be better pleased than Mr. Powell. This is the kind of thing which makes the Government ridiculous and illustrates above all things the folly of trying to interfere with general principles of law.
It is quite true that tucked away in Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936 there is this precedent. I wonder how often it has been used in the 40 years since it was introduced, and, if it has not been used very often during the whole of the Mosley attack on Jews, I wonder why it has not been used. I think I can tell the noble Lords of the Government why it has not been used. It is because it was no use anyway and if it had been used it would have caused a cry of indignation and aroused sympathy for the very man whom it was wished to punish. That is why it has not been used.
The truth is that the safety of minorities in this country—the safety of Jews and that of coloured people—depends upon an observance of the rules of law and the principle of liberty. That is their protection. If one starts trying to make martyrs of the people who attack them, then it will be found that the sympathy to which they are justly entitled is transferred. Even that is not the end of the folly of this thing. Let us suppose that Mr. Powell's speech is published in The Times. Of course there is an escape clause for the publication of speeches: if they are made in Parliament or if they are made in legal proceedings the editor of The Times is protected. But if Mr. Powell speaks to the City of London Young Conservatives, or to the Eastbourne

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Chamber of Commerce or the other places which seem to solicit his attentions—although the invitation is not always persisted in when they discover exactly how he is going to abuse their hospitality—if he speaks anywhere except in the House of Commons or in a court of law, then the editor of The Times has to join him in the dock at the Old Bailey for publishing it.
That is the situation which the Government have created. Are the Government really not able to understand why it is that the President of the Guild of Newspaper Editors was so cut up about this clause, so anxious that our Amendment should be carried? Of course, it is now going to be said that if we persist in it we are defying the will of the people. Some little twit down the corridor, who will not get in the next time, is going to accuse us of defying the popular will. I must say, I am very much tempted to do so. However, I have said what I have said; I am not going to say it again. I do not think we shall gain any more or do much good by taking it any further, except just to tell them where they get off.
8.5 p.m.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, I have a very high respect, as the noble and learned Lord knows, for him and for his views about racial discrimination. I have every cause to know that and I publicly acknowledge it, but I am afraid that I cannot accept the argument that he has put forward because of an experience which dates back many years. I came to the conclusion long ago, as one who fought against racial discrimination in the 1930s, that the law was not strong enough to prevent the kind of vicious and terrible propaganda that was being preached at that time under the leadership of Mosley, a man who had opened a synagogue at one time and who had even put up a candidate against myself, one who happened to be of Jewish persuasion. He was using his new movement purely for the purpose of obtaining some return in support of gangsters for the vilification of Jewish people.
First of all, to me, there was considerable difficulty in getting any law passed at all. There was the question for example of stopping the use of uniforms. I remember discussing the matter with
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Lord Simon and others at that time. They also presented a similar case to that which the noble and learned Lord is putting forward this evening—honestly, of course, and believing that the effect of any legislation would be contrary to the interests of those whom it was intended to protect. Certain legislation was passed—the 1936 Act. As Members of this House will readily remember, it was passed but it was not sufficiently effective because, although in fact everybody knew that there was intent on the part of the villainous Fascists of that time they could not be prosecuted. It is hard for me to speak about this, because it ultimately resulted in the murder and torture of some six million Jewish people. We came to the conclusion that the Act as it stood then—and unfortunately, in my view, repeated in the Race Relations Act of 1965—was not sufficient to stop the dangerous and inhuman actions that were being used by those who were vilifying Jewish people and determined to destroy their good name because of the political ambitions of those Fascists.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord's speech, but he is overlooking the fact that Section 5 of that Act is the precise model upon which this section is framed and it was cited in favour of it by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. This section does not really carry the matter much further.
Lord JANNER: My Lords, if I may say so with respect, it carries the matter further to the extent that the Attorney-General will have the right to institute prosecutions against people who are inciting racial hatred and who are not able to satisfy a jury that there was no intent. Indeed, I think that the noble and learned Lord will remember a number of occasions on which intent should in fact be clear to any reasonable person but in which juries have returned "not guilty" verdicts.
I feel difficulty in speaking against the contentions which are put forward by the noble and learned Lord, who I know has this matter deeply at heart. But I cannot help but feel that if people go (as they did in those days into the East End and other places in London) into areas where racial discrimination can be stirred

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up, it would not be a breach of the principles of law. I am a lawyer myself, and I realise what is underlying the arguments put forward. I think that this kind of case is very exceptional. I do not think that people should be allowed to act in the way that criminals of those days did, and I do not believe that a clause of this sort would have the effect that some noble Lords believe that it will. I think, on the contrary, that leaving it in the hands of the Attorney-General—and after all it is not a matter which can be brought without his consent—to decide whether an action should be brought is sufficient safeguard against anyone bringing a prosecution which is not based on thorough grounds.
There are cases, as the noble and learned Lord knows—and I feel bound to repeat something which has already been said—in which the onus of proof has been put upon the respondent or defendant. I think that the crimes that this Bill intends to deal with are crimes within the category where similar action should be taken.
8.13 p.m.
Lord WIGODER: My Lords, I fully understand and have much sympathy with the argument put forward by the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Janner, that there should now be legislation which makes it an offence if a person at a public meeting, for example, uses insulting words which are likely to cause racial hatred, and that it should not be necessary that intention should have to be specifically proved as an ingredient of the offence. My anxiety about this clause is not so much on that aspect of it as the other aspect touched on by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, as to the possible effect upon the restriction of the freedom of the Press.
If a distinguished public figure is making a speech of this nature which, in itself, qualifies for prosecution under this clause, it might be very much in the public interest that the public as a whole should know what was being said and who was saying it. As this subsection stands, the newspaper is just as much liable to prosecution as the individual speaker. I can only hope that it might be possible for the noble Lord, Lord Harris, to indicate that when the Attorney-General comes to consider whether to give his consent to the prosecution of a newspaper, he will
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be very slow indeed to consent to the prosecution of a newspaper which is in good faith doing its duty in informing the public of matters which the public has every right to know.
Lord MONSON: My Lords, I believe that this is the clause above all others that your Lordships should insist upon tonight. I fully appreciate the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Janner, but I believe that the clause as unamended would be counter-productive, and would not achieve the objectives or the safeguards which he rightly looks for: partly for the reasons advanced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, and partly for the reasons advanced by an honourable and learned Member in another place on 27th October, who pointed out that the effect of the clause as unamended is to render a man liable to up to two years' imprisonment when he is innocent of any intention to stir up hatred against any racial group. It will allow the conviction of a man who is genuinely innocent of any racialist intent. He went on to say that it would introduce into English law a principle which undermines civil liberties. I am sure that none of your Lordships would wish this to happen.
Another honourable and learned Member reminded the House that many years ago a Labour Party spokesman, speaking from the Dispatch Box in another place, demanded a Bill to make it a criminal offence to say that coloured immigration into this country should be totally stopped. Of course, no Labour spokesman speaking from the Dispatch Box today would say such a thing—but who knows what may happen in a few years time?
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, spoke of the fears expressed by the Guild of British Newspaper Editors. I have heard today that the Insitute of Journalists are equally concerned about the effects of the clause if left unamended. Another Front Bench speaker in another place spoke about the clause as unamended as possibly bringing the whole of Parliament, and our civil and criminal law, into disrepute. In another place the great majority of the Liberal Party voted with the Conservatives for this Amendment, including Mr. Emlyn Hooson, who has in the normal way supported most of the clauses of this Bill, taking the side of the

1099
Government against the Opposition. The majority against the Amendment was a narrow one.
I remember well a few weeks ago the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, speaking from the Benches on my left, in opposing a subsection of this Bill, speaking of the freedoms for which the British people have fought throughout the centuries. I believe that freedom of speech and the freedom of the Press are the principles that we ought to fight for tonight.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I say that I have been reflecting upon a certain expression I used which might be thought to express a lack of respect for Members of another place. I do not think I was within the rules of order, and I should like to withdraw that expression and substitute the expression "honourable Member" for the expression which I in fact employed.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, if I may say so, that was done with particular delicacy. The noble and learned Lord has rehearsed—and I make no objection to this, obviously—the points which he made on an earlier occasion. I am well aware that he takes that view of the matter, as do his honourable friends in another place. I hope that the experience we have with the Bill on the Statute Book will prove him wrong, and that is the Government's belief.
Regarding the point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wigoder, he will realise that I have to speak with some caution in giving an undertaking not only on behalf of the current Attorney-General but as to the attitude future Attorneys-General may take on the question of a prosecution, but the intention is that they should reflect on the facts of a particular case, and I am sure that they will bear in mind the considerations which the noble and learned Lord advanced, but clearly I cannot go beyond that.
I am well aware also of some of the anxieties that have been expressed by the Guild of British Newspaper Editors, but I believe that some of the arguments they have advanced are unjustified. At the moment, newspapers often use their own
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discretion to omit language of that sort and, if using an example from the United States is not amiss, it is interesting to note that in the remarks which were attributed to the late Secretary of Agriculture in the United States, only one American newspaper thought it appropriate to tell their readers what in fact he had said. They did not take the view that it was their high public duty to publish words which later required him to resign his office as Secretary of Agriculture. This is an indication that the Press at present exercise a substantial amount of restraint when vulgar and abusive language is used and I do not therefore believe that this raises fundamental questions affecting the liberty of the Press. Nevertheless, there are certainly anxieties among some journalists I would not put it higher than that—and, again, I hope they will prove to be unjustified.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
30 Leave out Clause 71.
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment and proposed the following Amendments to the words so restored to the Bill:
31 Page 46, line 30, leave out "its" and insert "their".
32 Page 46, line 32, leave out "work towards the elimination of discrimination and" and insert "make appropriate arrangements with a view to securing that their various functions are carried out with due regard to the need—

(a) to eliminate unlawful racial discrimination; and

(b)".

8.22 p.m.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 30 to which the Commons have disagreed, and agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 to the words so restored to the Bill. Your Lordship know that the Government had reservations about this clause. They had them when they were defeated in Standing Committee in another place and when they were discussed in this House only a few weeks ago. I made it plain that the Government are at one with the supporters of Clause 71 in believing that local authorities have an important role to play in race relations. The way the local authorities exercise their responsibilities is very important to how the minority communities

1101
fare in our society. The Government believe that it is essential that they should co-operate fully with the new Commission in seeking to promote racial justice and harmony.
The view on both sides in another place was that the Bill should contain a local authority clause, and the Government accepted that view. The Amendment to delete Clause 71 was disagreed to without a division. The Government then did what I said they would do if the clause were not deleted; we moved what are now Commons Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 to clarify the nature of the obligation swhich the clause imposes on local authorities. I hope that these Amendments, which clarify what is expected of local authorities, will make the clause more acceptable to those Members of your Lordships' House who were initially opposed to the clause.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 30 to which the Commons have disagreed, and agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 31 and 32 to the words so restored to the Bill.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, we seem to be in the curious position that when the Minister spoke on the clause in Committee it appeared that the Government were not terribly enthusiastic about it. Nevertheless, apparently the elected representatives of the people seem to have had their voice override the Government in this case and we now find the clause back in the Bill. Of course it is pointless at this stage in the proceedings to object to the inclusion of the clause, but we see very little point of having it included in that local authorities have obligations to the people living in their community. There seems to be no guidance from the Government as to what sort of policy local authorities are to have and what sort of priority they are to give to race relations. Presumably it will be more and more difficult because even since the introduction of the Bill local authorities have less and less money to use on vital matters apart from race relations. Nobody denies that race relations is an extremely important part of the work of local authorities and one would hope that any local authority would realise that it is the commitment of such a body to encourage good relations. However, in the present position we do not object to
1102
the clause but we think it is quite unnecessary in the Bill.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, loath though I am to cross swords with the noble Baroness, it is difficult to please the Opposition who, in another place, were keen to have it. The Government acceded to their request and now the noble Baroness says she is not sure that the Amendment is necessary. I think that on this matter, as I hope on others, we have attempted to listen to the views expressed in both Houses and to come to a decision on the matter which carries with it the approval of as many people on both sides of the House as possible because in this field of race relations legislation I hope there are not major Party issues involved, and we are anxious to ensure that we carry the consent of the largest number of people possible.
The words which appeared in the previous clause were objectionable to the Government and I indicated that if the clause were written into the Bill the Government would wish to come forward with Amendments to deal with the clause as then drafted. In another place it was decided that, as a result of pressure from all sides of the House, a clause along these lines should be written in the Bill and the Government then proposed the Amendments with which we are now dealing.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
33 Clause 73, page 47,1ine 35, leave out "24 or 25" and insert "or 24".
34 Clause 73, page 47, line 36, leave out "or 25(1)(a)".
35 Clause 73, page 47, line 37, leave out "or members".
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
36 Because these Amendments are consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords to leave out Clause 25, to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 33, 34 and 35 en bloc, to which the Commons have disagreed for Reason numbered 36. We discussed these Amendments with Amendment No. 16.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which

1103
the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 36.—(Lord Harris of Greenwich.)

LORDS AMENDMENT
37 Clause 78, page 51, line 8, leave out "Commission for Racial Equality" and insert "Community Relations Commission".
The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:
38 Because the said Amendment is consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords in page 26, line 7, to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 37, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 38. Amendment No. 37 is one in the group dealing with the name of the Commission, which we have already discussed.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendment, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 38.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)

LORDS AMENDMENTS
39 Schedule 1, page 55, line 3, leave out "COMMISSION FOR RACIAL EQUALITY" and insert "COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMISSION".
40 Page 57, line 10, leave out ""Commission for Racial Equality"" and insert ""Community Relations Commission"".
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reasons:
41 Because the said Amendments are consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords in page 26, line 7, to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 39 and 40, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 41. These, too, relate to the name of the Commission and have been discussed.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendments, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 41.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)

LORDS AMENDMENT
42 Schedule 1, page 57, line 18, leave out from "Commission" to end of line 19 and insert—
"9A.—(1) In this paragraph—
"the new Commission" means the Community Relations Commission;
"present Commission employee" means a person who immediately before the repeal date is employed by the Community Relations Commission established by section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1968;
"private pension scheme" means a scheme for the payment of pensions, allowances or gratuities other than one made under section 1 of the Superannuation Act 1972;
"the repeal date" means the date on which the repeal of the Race Relations Act 1968 by this Act takes effect.
(2) If a present Commission employee enters the employment of the new Commission on the repeal date and on so doing elects to be covered for his service in that employment by a private pension scheme in which he was a participant in respect of his service in the employment of the Community Relations Commission established as aforesaid, the new Commission may make such payments towards the provision of benefits to or in respect of him under that scheme (or any other private pension scheme replacing it) as may be determined by the new Commission with the consent of the Secretary of State given with the approval of the Minister for the Civil Service; and it shall be the duty of the new Commission and those Ministers in the exercise of their functions under this sub-paragraph to ensure that his rights under the scheme do not become less advantageous than they were when he entered the employment of the new Commission.
(3) Where a person who is employed by the new Commission and is in respect of that employment a participant in a private pension scheme becomes a Commissioner or an additional Commissioner, his service as a Commissioner or additional Commissioner may be treated for the purposes of the scheme as service as an employee of the new Commission."
The Commons agreed to this Amendment but propose following Amendments thereto:
43 Line 4, leave out "Community Relations Commission" and insert "Commission for Racial Equality ".
44 Line 8, leave out from "Commission" to end of line 9.
45 Line 20, leave out "established as aforesaid".
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords. I beg to move that this House cloth agree with Commons Amendments Nos. 43, 44 and 45 to the Lords Amendment No. 42. Your Lordships agreed to Amendment No. 42 on Report, by which time we had decided to change the name of the Commission. Amendments Nos. 43, 44 and

1105
45 to Amendment No. 42 are consequential on the restoration of the name Commission for Racial Equality.
Moved, That this House doth agree with the said Commons Amendments to the Lords Amendment No. 42.—(Lord Wells-Pestell.)

LORDS AMENDMENTS
46 Schedule 1, page 58, line 30, leave out "Commission for Racial Equality" and insert "Community Relations Commission".
47 Schedule 1, page 58, line 34, leave out "Commission for Racial Equality" and insert "Community Relations Commission".
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
48 Because the said Amendments are consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords in page 26, line 7, to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 46 and 47, to which the Commons had disagreed for the Reason numbered 48.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on their Amendments Nos. 46 and 47, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 48.

LORDS AMENDMENTS
49 Schedule 2, page 60, line 48, leave out from "Commission" to "by" in line 49 and insert "established by section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1968 shall vest in the Community Relations Commission".
50 Page 61, line 4, leave out "Commission for Racial Equality" and insert "Community Relations Commission".
51 Page 61, line 11, at end insert "established by section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1968."
52 Page 61, line 24, after "Commission" insert "established by section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1968".
53 Page 61, line 35, after "Commission" insert "established by section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1968".
54 Page 61, line 40, at end insert "established by section 25 of the Race Relations Act 1968".
55 Page 61, line 41, leave out "Commission for Racial Equality" and insert Community Relations Commission".
The Commons disagreed to these Amendments for the following Reason:
56 Because the said Amendments are consequential upon the Amendment made by the Lords in page 26, line 7, to which the Commons have disagreed.
Lord WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I beg to move that this House doth not insist on Amendments Nos. 49 to 55 en bloc, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 56.
Moved, That the House doth not insist on the said Amendments to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 56.

TYNE AND WEAR BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to with Amendments; the said Amendments considered and agreed to.
LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
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